Constitutional law
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The Moneyed Interests
Restrictions on pre-electoral spending by citizens and groups other than political parties and their candidates (known in the jargon as “third-party spending”) have gained a rather unlikely supporter: Tom Flanagan. Prof. Flanagan, arguably Canada’s most prominent conservative thinker, has come out in support of such restrictions in an op-ed in the Globe and Mail. This… Continue reading
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Minus the Mandatory Minimum
Last week, another mandatory minimum sentence introduced as part of the federal government’s “tough-on-crime” agenda was declared unconstitutional, this time by the Ontario Court of Justice. The provision at issue in R. v. Lewis, 2012 ONCJ 413, is par. 99(2)(a) of the Criminal Code, and imposes a mandatory minimum of three-years’ imprisonment for a first-time firearms… Continue reading
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Plus on est de monde…
Il y aura, dit-on, bientôt des élections au Québec. Et qui dit élections, dit débat des chefs. Et qui dit débat des chefs, dit controverse sur la question de qui inviter et qui laisser de côté. Gilbert Lavoie pose la question en vue de la prochaine campagne électorale dans un billet sur son blogue pour… Continue reading
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Operation Dismantle at the Olympics
Citizens concerned that the deployment of a weapons system in their place of residence will expose them to an increased risk of a devastating attack turn to the courts to try to block the deployment. They fail. To a Canadian constitutional law junkie, that’s the short story of Operation Dismantle v. The Queen, [1985] 1 S.C.R.… Continue reading
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Ideology in Constitutional Scholarship
Is most writing about constitutional law and theory (in the United States, but perhaps also in Canada) “intellectually corrupt”? In a post on the Bleeding Heart Libertarians blog, Jason Brennan, a philosopher and economist from Georgetown, says that it is. But, while his description of constitutional scholarship is, unfortunately, right, his explanation and evaluation of… Continue reading
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Independence Enough Day
Ontario’s Small Claims Court relies on the work of 400 “deputy judges” – practising lawyers who take up part-time judging gigs, for an average of 19 sitting days a year. Subs. 32(1) of the the Courts of Justice Act provides that they are appointed by “[a] regional senior judge of the Superior Court of Justice… Continue reading
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In an Unknown Language
It is not every day, or even every month, that courts get to quote and discuss a statute enacted in the reign of Edward III. But the BC Court of Appeal did just that in an interesting decision it issued last week, in the case of Conseil Scolaire Francophone de la Colombie-Britannique v. British Columbia,… Continue reading
Double Aspect 