Preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[1] In R v Morgentaler (1988), Justice Bertha Wilson defined freedom of conscience as protecting "conscientious beliefs which are not religiously motivated", and balanced the preamble out with the statement that "the values entrenched in the Charter are those which characterize a free and democratic society".

In considering the legal implications of the preamble in the 1999 case R v Sharpe, the British Columbia Court of Appeal referred to it as a "dead letter" which the BC justices had "no authority to breathe life" into.

The court therefore confirmed the Charter's preamble's importance by stating, "The constitutional status of the rule of law is beyond question.

In Re BC Motor Vehicle Act (1985), the Supreme Court also linked the rule of law to the principles of fundamental justice, as illustrated by sections 8 to 14 of the Charter.

[2] For instance, Paul Russell has stated that "The basic problem with the God-clause is that it runs into an impossible dilemma, given the actual content of the Charter itself.

However, there were various religious and Conservative criticisms of the Charter during its drafting, with fears that denominational schools and Canada's abortion law were threatened.