Constitutional law
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Don’t Piss Off the Crocodile
As promised, I have some comments on the B.C. Supreme Court decision striking down hearing fees, which I summarized here yesterday. In fact I’ll have a lot of comments, too many for just one post. I start off today with some thoughts on what I take to be the main line of argument in Justice… Continue reading
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You Read It Here First
I thought I was late, but at least I beat La Presse. I wrote on Tuesday about the latest decision of Québec’s Superior Court in the gun-registry litigation. La Presse has a story about it today. Nothing really new there. Continue reading
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One’s Day in Court: Priceless?
In 1998, British Columbia started charging litigant stiff “hearing fees” for each day of a civil trial. Last week, Justice McEwan of the B.C. Supreme Court issued a monster of a judgment declaring them unconstitutional. The decision is very interesting for all sorts of reasons, but it is also abusively long. Fortunately for you, I have… Continue reading
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The Good of Religion
Yesterday I attended a discussion with Robert P. George, the Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton (which of course does not have a law school!) and one of the leading religious conservative public intellectuals in the United States. The topic was “Religious Liberty and the Human Good.” David Blankenhorn – perhaps best known recently as a… Continue reading
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Gun-Registry Litigation News
I know, I know, you are as I excited as I am to read about the progress of Québec’s lawsuit to get its hands on the gun-registry data the federal government wants to destroy. So here goes. (If, for reasons beyond my comprehension, you are not breathlessly excited about this, rest assured that I have… Continue reading
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It’s Not a POGGrom!
Canada’s “newspaper of record” has published an ignorant rant by Neil Reynolds, savaging alleged abuses, rhetorical, legislative, and jurisprudential, of the “Peace, Order, and Good government” (a.k.a. POGG) clause of s. 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867, which sets out the powers of the federal Parliament. While the words “peace, order, and good good government”… Continue reading
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More about Election Law
There are two things to mention today, both related to election law, and more specifically to restrictions on “third-party” speech in the pre-electoral context. First, Radio-Canada reports that Québec’s Chief Electoral Officer has been in touch with the leaders of the student organizations who are protesting the tuition fee hikes announced by the provincial government. The… Continue reading
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Is There Voice after Exit?
First of all, an apology for the overextended silence. I couldn’t find anything interesting to blog on, I’m afraid. Fortunately the CBC has rescued me by reporting on a challenge to the provision of the Canada Elections Act, S.C. 2000 c. 9 (CEA) which prohibits Canadians who have resided abroad for more than five consecutive… Continue reading
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Can Canada Ban Books?
The New Yorker has published an interesting, albeit tendentious, as The Volokh Conspiracy’s Jonathan Adler explains, account by Jeffrey Toobin of the notorious Citizens United decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down limits on corporations’ spending on pre-electoral advertising. According to Mr. Toobin, the key to Supreme Court’s engagement with the case was a question asked by… Continue reading
Double Aspect 