Constitutional law
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What Does This Mean?
Those of you who have been following this blog for a while will recall that I take a lot of interest in oaths; especially, but not exclusively, citizenship oaths. A paper of mine arguing that the Canadian citizenship oath is unconstitutional as an unjustified infringement of the freedom of conscience came out in the last… Continue reading
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“For The Security of the Country”
Apologies for my long silence. I know I have ground to make up, what with the Supreme Court’s last Friday’s decisions. But let me start with something entirely different: a passage in Justice Taschereau’s dissent from the Supreme Court’s famous decision in Switzman v. Elbling, [1957] S.C.R. 285, which struck down Québec’s infamous “Padlock Law,” formally An… Continue reading
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All or Nothing
I want to come back, briefly, to the crazy idea I put forward last weekend, about the Governor General starting to appoint Senators without waiting for Prime Ministerial advice if it becomes clear that such advice is not and will not be forthcoming. Actually, maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea because, as Aniz Alani… Continue reading
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Please Advise
The Prime Minister is apparently refusing to have any new Senators appointed, until, well, who knows (though one may suspect that it is until the next election. The leader of the official opposition has already declared that he would never appoint any Senators ever. And, as I noted in my first post on this subject,… Continue reading
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Disrupting C-36
The Economist has published a lengthy and informative “briefing” on the ways in which the internet is changing prostitution ― often, although not always, for the benefit of sex workers. As it explains, the effects of new technologies on what is usually said to be the oldest profession are far-reaching, and mostly positive ― insofar… Continue reading
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Constitutional Defiance
In news which perhaps did not receive the attention it deserved, the federal leader of the opposition, Thomas Mulcair, announced that, if he becomes Prime Minister following the next federal election, he would imitate the current Prime Minister and refuse to appoint any Senators. La Presse quotes him as saying that [t]he Senate is like… Continue reading
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Not Beyond Interpretation
This afternoon, the Québec Court of Appeal delivered its opinion in the Reference re Section 98 of the Constitution Act, 1867 ― which asked it to pronounce on the constitutionality of the appointment, to the Court, of Justice Robert Mainville who was, at the time of that appointment, a judge of the Federal Court of… Continue reading
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« Suffisamment québécois »
Le nouveau juge en chef de la Cour d’appel fédérale, Marc Noël, a récemment prononcé un discours qui explique très bien les problèmes soulevés par l’avis rendu par la Cour suprême dans l’Affaire Nadon, Renvoi relatif à la Loi sur la Cour suprême, art. 5 et 6, 2014 CSC 21, [2014] 1 R.C.S. 433. Ces problèmes, sont aussi au… Continue reading
Double Aspect 