Question

The 4 part proportionality test assessing a gov't justification for a charter breach: (SCC)

A. The Oakes test
B. The Carter test
C. The Douglas test
D. The Wright test

Answer 1

The 4-part proportionality test for assessing a government's justification for a breach of the charter is known as the Oakes test. It demands pressing and substantial law objectives and proportionate means of achieving these objectives, including rational connection, minimal impairment, and a balance of effects.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Oakes Test

The correct answer to the question regarding the 4-part proportionality test assessing a government's justification for a charter breach is A. The Oakes test. This test is named after the seminal Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Oakes, which established a stringent set of criteria that must be met for a law to justifiably infringe upon a right protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Oakes test consists of two main steps with further sub-criteria: First, there must be a pressing and substantial objective for the law in question; second, the means of achieving this objective must be proportional, which itself includes three sub-tests:

1. The measures adopted must be rationally connected to the objective.
2. There must be minimal impairment of rights.
3. There must be a proportionality between the infringement and the objective of the law, which includes an analysis of the effects of the law against the importance of the objective.

When considering cases such as a claim of discrimination by a public university, courts may apply a different set of criteria depending on the nature of the case, such as strict scrutiny for suspected discrimination on race or a rational basis test for more general claims of discrimination.