What is the test for a person’s right to liberty?

In Godbout v. Longueil (City), 1997 CanLII 335 (SCC), [1997] 3 S.C.R. 844 at para. 66, La Forest J. commented that the right to liberty extended beyond physical constraints and applied to making decisions of fundamental importance. He held that the right of liberty protects “the right to an irreducible sphere of personal autonomy wherein individuals may make inherently private choices free from state interference.” He went on to note, however, that the sphere encompasses “… only those matters that can properly be characterized as fundamentally or inherently personal such that, by their very nature, they implicate basic choices going to the core of what it means to enjoy individual dignity and independence.”

Charter jurisprudence has also suggested that security of person interests involve an idea of personal autonomy and an individual’s control over their own bodily and psychological integrity. In Rodriguez v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 1993 CanLII 75 (SCC), [1993] 3 S.C.R. 519 at para. 136 Sopinka J. concluded: There is no question … that personal autonomy, at least with respect to the right to make choices concerning one’s own body, control over one’s physical and psychological integrity, and basic human dignity are encompassed within security of person, at least to the extent of freedom from criminal prohibitions which interfere with these.