Criminal Code (Canada) in the context of "Summary offence"

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⭐ Core Definition: Criminal Code (Canada)

The Criminal Code (French: Code criminel) is a law of the Parliament of Canada that codifies most, but not all, criminal offences and principles of criminal procedure in Canada. Its long title is An Act respecting the Criminal Law (French: Loi concernant le droit criminel). It is indexed in the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1985 as chapter number C-46 and it is sometimes abbreviated as Cr.C. (French: C.Cr.) in legal reports.

Section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867 establishes that the Parliament of Canada has sole jurisdiction over criminal law. Accordingly, the Criminal Code applies to the entirety of the country, meaning that in Canada, all crimes which are defined under the Criminal Code are federal crimes and can be prosecuted anywhere they occur in or out of the country. Additionally, with one major exception for treason which has a statute of limitations of three years, there is no statute of limitations for the prosecution of indictable offences and such prosecutions may be commenced at any time. Summary offences, on the other hand, have a statute of limitations of 12 months.

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Criminal Code (Canada) in the context of Criminal law of Canada

The criminal law of Canada is under the exclusive legislative jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. The power to enact criminal law is derived from section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867. Most criminal laws have been codified in the Criminal Code, as well as the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, Youth Criminal Justice Act and several other peripheral statutes.
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Criminal Code (Canada) in the context of Criminal code

A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might be imposed for these offences, and some general provisions (such as definitions and prohibitions on retroactive prosecution).

Criminal codes are relatively common in civil law jurisdictions, which tend to build legal systems around codes and principles which are relatively abstract and apply them on a case-by-case basis. Conversely they are not as common in common law jurisdictions. Where a jurisdiction is a federation, the subnational units of such jurisdiction may or may not use separate penal codes. For example, in India, the entire country (the federal government, states, and union territories) all operate under one criminal code, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and in Canada the process is roughly the same, with the entire country being subject to a single criminal code. However, in Australia, the federal government and the states operate under different criminal codes (for instance, New South Wales would not necessarily use the federal criminal code, but rather, its own criminal code.)

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Criminal Code (Canada) in the context of R v Keegstra

R v Keegstra, [1990] 3 SCR 697 is a freedom of expression decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the court upheld the Criminal Code provision prohibiting the wilful promotion of hatred against an identifiable group as constitutional under the freedom of expression provision in section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is a companion case to R v Andrews.

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