Constitutional law
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Nouveaux médias, vieille loi
La semaine dernière, le Directeur général de élections a exigé des producteurs d’un court documentaire intitulé La charte des élections et dénonçant la Charte de la honte du PQ comme une tactique électoraliste qu’ils cessent d’en faire la promotion et la distribution. Dans mon billet sur le sujet, j’avais estimé que le DGE avait probablement… Continue reading
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Absurde censure
Un employeur québécois a-t-il le droit de dire à ses employés comment voter (ou ne pas voter)? C’est la question que pose un article paru dans La Presse ce matin. Louise Leduc écrit que le patron d’une usine de Delson « a envoyé une lettre à son personnel lui enjoignant de ne pas voter pour le… Continue reading
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Danger in Definition
I blogged some time ago about the difficulties that courts face when trying to define religion. In a recent interview, Judge Guido Calabresi (of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit), makes some interesting comments about this issue. (Most of Judge Calabresi’s interview deals with the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway,… Continue reading
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Judicial Review
As the federal government considers its response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2013 SCC 72, which invalidated the prostitution-related provisions of the Criminal Code, one can be forgiven for wondering whether its response will be guided by facts and research, or by ideology. Unfortunately, as a depressing but important guest post by Maggie… Continue reading
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Searching Freedom
I have already blogged (here and here) about the debate on whether the output of search engines such as Google should be protected by constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, summarizing arguments by Eugene Volokh and Josh Blakcman. These arguments are no longer merely the stuff of academic debate. As both prof. Volokh and prof. Blackman report,… Continue reading
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Ce que l’on sème
Depuis au moins les années 70, les penseurs et les politiciens « progressistes » se sont beaucoup préoccupés du rôle de l’argent en politique. Ils ont également cherché à donner aux partis politiques une place centrale dans le cadre du débat pré-électoral, comme je le soulignais ici. L’idée était que les riches, par leurs contributions… Continue reading
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Petty Punishment, SCC Edition
Rather lost in all the noise generated by the Supreme Court’s decision in l’Affaire Nadon is the Court’s decision, delivered last Thursday, in Canada (Attorney General) v. Whaling, 2014 SCC 20, which considered, and found unconstitutional, the retroactive application of the abolition of accelerated parole review by one of the recent “tough on crime” laws. I would like to… Continue reading
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What You Wish For
As promised, here are some thoughts on the Supreme Court’s opinion in l’affaire Nadon, Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6, 2014 SCC 21. As I mentioned in my last post, which summarized the majority opinion and Justice Moldaver’s dissent, I think that the majority opinion is a weak one. I should note that my views here seem to be very… Continue reading
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No-don
Yesterday, the Supreme Court has delivered its opinion concerning the legality and constitutionality of the appointment (and swearing in by the Court!) of Justice Nadon, Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6, 2014 SCC 21. By a 6-1 majority, it finds that Justice Nadon’s appointment was not authorized by s. 6 of the Supreme Court Act, and that the enactment by Parliament… Continue reading
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Written by a Human (For Now)
Just a quick follow-up to my last post, discussing the possible consequences for constitutional law of the increasing role of algorithms in the (re-)creation of information. While that post, and Josh Blackman’s essay on which it was based,focused on search engines, a post on The Guardian’s website this weekend discusses the “writing” of actual news… Continue reading
Double Aspect 