Constitutional law
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You Can Stay
On the topic of extradition, which I raised in yesterday’s post, there is an important very recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal, United States v. Leonard, 2012 ONCA 622. The decision concerns applications for judicial review by two Aboriginal Canadians of extradition orders authorizing their surrender to the authorities in the United States… Continue reading
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Death Penalty and Dignity
The topic of tomorrow’s class in Jeremy Waldron’s Human Dignity seminar is the death penalty and, having blogged about the sorts of arguments that are made for and against it here and here, I want to come back to the topic, because a couple of things caught my eye as I was doing the readings. One… Continue reading
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Thanks for Nothing
Last week, the Superior Court of Ontario has issued a ruling on two important motions in a challenge to the constitutionality of the abolition by Parliament of the long-gun registry brought by an Ontario NGO, the Barbara Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, which I first mentioned here. The decision, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic v. Canada, 2012 ONSC 5271, deals… Continue reading
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Moving the Earth
Last week, the Supreme Court issued an important judgment on the law of public interest standing. Although it might seem like a technical issue, the importance of standing, or locus standi, was already clear to Archimedes 2200 years ago, when he asserted that if given a place to stand, he would move the earth. Ok,… Continue reading
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There’s Nothing in That Name
This morning, the Supreme Court delivered a decision that is a further small step in the debate about the right of litigants to privacy and the right of the public to know what goes on in our courtrooms. I blogged about these issues here and here. The applicant in the case, A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46, is… Continue reading
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A Strike against Three Strikes
The Superior Court of Ontario has struck down another element of the Conservative government’s “though-on-crime” legislative programme last week, in R. v. Hill, 2012 ONSC 5050. (I blogged about another such case here.) The provision at issue in Hill was s. 753(1.1) of the Criminal Code, which provides that if an accused is convicted of… Continue reading
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Keeping Judges Busy
The Globe and Mail reports that the federal government will go to the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of its Senate Reform project. Opponents of the reform have dared it to do so for years. They’ll get their wish now. The Supreme Court’s was already asked to rule on Senate reform project once, by Pierre… Continue reading
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The Rewards of Punishment
I wondered aloud, yesterday, about the difference between falsely shouting “fire” in a theatre and causing a panic, and producing an incendiary video likely to cause murderous violence half a world away. Actually, I wondered whether there was any difference; I wasn’t able to come up with a convincing distinction. Eugene Volokh, over at the… Continue reading
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Shouting Fire
A hateful idiot makes a nasty video about Islam and posts it on Youtube. Predictably enough, similar things having happened a number of times over the last few years, murderous violence breaks out in some Muslim countries as a consequence. (Unusually, there have been Western victims this time.) Predictably too, some people have been calling… Continue reading
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Property and Propriety
I wrote yesterday about the judgment of the Québec Superior Court holding that the destruction of the gun-registry data concerning Québec is unconstitutional. As promised, I would like to volunteer some thoughts on the decision. In a nutshell, I think the outcome is sound, but the reasoning not the best that could have been offered.… Continue reading
Double Aspect 