Constitutional law
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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
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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
Double Aspect 