[174] Mr Jacobsen suggests that it follows from this purposive approach to reconciling Charter rights and values with parliamentary privilege both that Charter rights should be read as being consistent with established parliamentary privileges and that the scope of asserted parliamentary privileges should be delineated in a way that is consistent with the guarantees of the Charter. The courts may not interfere with the exercise of an established privilege - including on grounds that the particular exercise is alleged to have infringed a Charter right – but “[t]o prevent abuses in the guise of privilege from trumping legitimate Charter interests, the court must inquire into the legitimacy of a claim of parliamentary privilege.” See: Harvey v. New Brunswick, supra at para. 71. This inquiry must take account of the constitutional guarantees and values entrenched in the Charter.
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