Notwithstanding Rights, Review, or Remedy? On the Notwithstanding Clause and the Operation of Legislation

Abstract

The Canadian Charter’s notwithstanding clause makes exception to something, but what is that something? Received readings of the notwithstanding clause err in assuming that the clause makes exception to rights or to judicial review. It is argued, instead, that the clause makes exception to the remedy that follows from a finding that legislation is inconsistent with targeted rights and freedoms. That remedy is the one outlined in the Constitution’s supremacy clause: legislation is of ‘no force or effect’ to ‘the extent of the inconsistency’ with such rights and freedoms. By reviewing how the expression ‘no force or effect’ is equivalent to the expression ‘inoperable,’ it is argued that the notwithstanding clause empowers a legislature to affirm that legislation ‘shall have such operation as it would have but for’ targeted rights and freedoms. Such affirmation does not suspend rights and it does not block judicial review. Rather, it secures the operation of legislation even if such legislation is held by a court to be inconsistent with constitutional rights and freedoms. It follows that legislation invoking the notwithstanding clause may be challenged in judicial review and that a court may declare such legislation to be inconsistent with targeted rights and freedoms.

Keywords: Canadian Charter, Commonwealth model, constitutional rights, judicial review, legislation, notwithstanding clause, section 33, supremacy clause, weak-form review