Legal lawlessness and the rule of law: a critique of Section 25.1 of the Criminal Code

Following the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Shirose, Parliament enacted section 25.1 of the Criminal Code, creating a general law enforcement justification that allows designated officials to break the law to better enforce it. Parliament’s scheme of sanctioning unlawful behaviour amounts to 'legal lawlessness' which fails to respect the rule of law, specifically the conceptions of legality (the principle that all State action must be grounded in a legal source) and legal equality (the principle that no one is above the law.