Canada features a unique mix of legal traditions. Most of the provincial courts and the Canadian federal appeals courts are based on English common law, while civil courts in the province of Quebec are based on the Napoleonic Code. Legal scholars generally agree that the Canadian system provides a fair and efficient judicial process that vigorously enforces the right to a fair trial. Most Canadian legal matters consist of the same sort of civil and criminal cases characteristic of other industrial democracies.

However, the system lacks some of the constitutional protections that the United States has. For example, Canada's Constitution protects freedom of speech, but it has no formal equivalent to the United States' First Amendment protection of speech, press and religion.

The government's authority to ban speech it regards as troublesome is quite broad. This has led to controversies surrounding American "shock jock" Howard Stern, whose radio program is now broadcast in parts of Canada. Stern's first broadcasts in Canada called the country's Quebecers "scum bags" and other names, landing the broadcasters who carried the program in court.

Similarly, Canadian criminal prosecutors are not limited by the U.S.-style ban on bringing a defendant to trial twice for the same crime, known as double jeopardy. A recent blunder led prosecutors to disregard one jury's decision that an Ontario man was not guilty of a highly publicized assault and murder of a child. The prosecutors brought the case again, this time winning a guilty verdict that netted the defendant a sentence of life in prison. Five years later, DNA tests proved that the defendant was innocent.

Recent legal controversies focus on protection of civil rights of immigrants and indigenous peoples.

Recent legal controversies in Canada often have focused on civil rights protections for immigrants and for indigenous peoples. The federal government's 1997 decision to significantly tighten immigration restrictions on Czech Gypsies led critics to complain of racial stereotyping. Similarly, a government panel's 1996 recommendation to extend significant new political rights and pay reparations to Native Americans in Canada has spurred lawsuits and political unrest in some quarters.

One matter now before the Canadian Supreme Court will almost certainly have a profound impact on the future of the country, regardless of the final ruling. Separatist political parties in Quebec contend that Canada's Constitution and international law provide that the French-speaking province may secede from Canada if a majority of its citizens vote to do so. (Recent elections and polls suggest that voters in the province may be split about 50-50 on the issue.) Canada's federal government contends that secession requires the consent, or at least consent on procedure, of the federal government, Canada's other provinces, and the voters of the country as a whole.

— Washingtonpost.com fellow Christopher Simpson