Section 13 of the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
The ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' (french: Charte canadienne des droits et libertés), often simply referred to as the ''Charter'' in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part ...
is a section of the Charter which, along with
section 11 (c), specifies rights regarding
self-incrimination
In criminal law, self-incrimination is the act of exposing oneself generally, by making a statement, "to an accusation or charge of crime; to involve oneself or another ersonin a criminal prosecution or the danger thereof". (Self-incrimination ...
.
It reads:
Rights against self-incrimination had existed in
Canadian law
The legal system of Canada is pluralist: its foundations lie in the English common law system (inherited from its period as a colony of the British Empire), the French civil law system (inherited from its French Empire past), and Indigenous ...
even before the Charter, but these applied to cases in which an individual might incriminate him or herself while giving
testimony
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter.
Etymology
The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness.
...
in another person's
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal ...
. Since the enactment of the Charter, the right has been extended in case law in regard to
retrial
A new trial or retrial is a recurrence of a court case. A new trial may potentially be ordered for some or all of the matters at issue in the original trial. Depending upon the rules of the jurisdiction and the decision of the court that ordered ...
s, to exclude from one's retrial self-incriminating evidence if it had been obtained during
cross examination
In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and Pakistan known as examination-in-chief) and m ...
in the last trial.
[Morton, F.L. and Rainer Knopff. ''The Charter Revolution & the Court Party''. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2000, page 47.]
This section serves a similar purpose as the
Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the United States Constitution addresses criminal procedure and other aspects of the Constitution. It was ratified, along with nine other articles, in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights. The Fifth Amend ...
, but does not provide witnesses the same opportunity to excuse themselves from testifying.
In
R. v. Nedelcu', 2012 SCC 59, a majority of the Supreme Court of Canada found that the prosecution in a criminal trial could use prior inconsistent testimony from a civil trial to impeach an accused person's credibility.
References
Section 13
Canadian criminal law
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