Constitutional law
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The Future Is Creepy
I had the chance today to be at a talk by two of the members of the legal “brain-trust” of President Obama’s re-election campaign, NYU’s professors Rick Pildes and Sam Issacharoff. (I have to brag: it was one of those moments that make NYU the best law school in the world.) Yet although they spoke… Continue reading
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Petty Punishment
The Court of Appeal for British Columbia has struck down yet another element of the “tough-on-crime” agenda of the Conservative government in a recent decision, Whaling v. Canada (Attorney General), 2012 BCCA 435, holding that the abolition of accelerated parole could not be applied to prisoners sentenced before the coming into force of the Abolition of Early Parole… Continue reading
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Why Can’t They Vote?
At the Volokh Conspiracy, Ilya Somin has a response to my post yesterday arguing that lowering the minimal voting age to 16 is a better way of redressing the exclusion of minors from the franchise than prof. Somin’s proposal to allow any minor to vote provided that he or she can past a test assessing… Continue reading
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Si jeunesse pouvait
Je voudrais revenir, en cette journée post-électorale, sur un billet qu’Ilya Somin a publié hier sur Volokh Conspiracy. Prof. Somin y remet en question le déni du droit de vote à « une part énorme de notre population: les enfants de moins de 18 ans » (je traduis). Selon lui, cette exclusion est « injuste… Continue reading
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The Idea of the Marketplace
Apologies for the lack of blogging for the past week. We had this minor disturbance of a hurricane, and then I went to a conference in Chicago to present my paper on federalism and judicial review. My topic today is the highlight of that conference, a keynote address by Robert Post, Dean of the Yale… Continue reading
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L’argent en politique
Depuis une dizaine de jours, des chroniqueurs de La Presse ont publié une série d’articles sur la diminution du montant maximal de don à un parti politique, proposée par le gouvernement du Parti Québécois. Après Vincent Marissal et Alain Dubuc, la plus récente intervention est celle de Lysiane Gagnon, ce matin. (C’est aussi la meilleure, car la plus… Continue reading
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Not So Great Expectations
Whatever his other merits and demerits, Conrad Black has made some noticeable contributions to the development of the law of justiciability in Canada. The latest came this week, in the form of a judgment of the Federal Court of Canada, in Black v. Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, 2012 FC 1234. The first… Continue reading
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Don’t Try Again
The BC Court of Appeal recently delivered an important decision in the area of election law. The case, Reference Re Election Act (BC), 2012 BCCA 394, is the Court’s take on the provincial legislature’s attempt to respond to the Court’s earlier judgment in British Columbia Teachers’ Federation v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 2011 BCCA 408,… Continue reading
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Federalism and Judicial Review
First of all, apologies for my silence in the last 10 days. I have a partial excuse in that I gave a guest-lecture in Fabien Gélinas’ constitutional law class at McGill last Thursday, about the Rule of Law and the legitimacy of the judges’ law-creating activity, which of course had me freaking-out to prepare. But… Continue reading
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Religious Freedom Is (a) Right
The Globe’s Doug Saunders has produced a very unfortunate op-ed this morning, arguing that “religious freedom” is at best redundant, at worst positively harmful, and that Canada should not be in the business of promoting it. The occasion for his outburst is the upcoming creation of the Office of Religious Freedom within the Department of… Continue reading
Double Aspect 