Legal philosophy
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Help Us. Or Maybe Don’t?
Here’s another point that I found interesting in the Supreme Court’s decision in R. v. Tatton, 2015 SCC 33. (I wrote about Justice Moldaver’s comment regarding mandatory minimum sentences yesterday.) The issue in Tatton was whether self-induced intoxication could be invoked as a defence to a charge of arson ― but Justice Moldaver, writing for the Continue reading
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In Defence of Judicial Majorities
First of all, apologies for my silence of late. Partly, I just couldn’t find anything interesting to write about. Partly, I have been much more diligent about my dissertation-writing, and that hasn’t helped with the blogging. Actually, as I’m trying to finish a draft over the next couple of months, I’ll compensate by occasionally posting Continue reading
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Les légitimités et le droit
Un récent billet de Pierre Trudel illustre bien certains problèmes dans une pensée, malheureusement, commune face au conflit « étudiant » qui sévit actuellement dans quelques universités et collèges du Québec. Se présentant comme une position de compromis entre l’immobilisme gouvernemental et irrédentisme des associations étudiantes pro-grève, cette pensée réclame l’ « encadrement » d’un droit de Continue reading
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Expecting Too Much?
I have recently responded here, in some detail, to Andrew Coyne’s article claiming, in essence, that some of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions were not mere wrong, but altogether unreasonable, and therefore “activist.” Over the Policy Options blog, I briefly take on Gordon’s Gibson’s attack on the Supreme Court’s alleged activism, which I think is Continue reading
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Seasonal Thoughts
‘Tis the season for, among other things, lots of food, lots of drink, and legal philosophy. Because it’s always the season for legal philosophy, right? It’s also the season for being lazy. So instead of a serious blog post, here are two passages I’ve recently come across ― one about food, the other about drink, Continue reading
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Humanism’s Heirs
Richard Posner is much on my mind these days. Partly that’s due to the excellent “Posner on Posner” extended-profile-and-interview-series by Ronald Collins over at Concurring Opinions (the latest instalment of which is here); partly to my (re)reading a couple of his books on adjudication (How Judges Think and Reflections on Judging); partly to his recent controversial Continue reading
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Hate Speech in Context
Exactly one year ago yesterday, a mosque in the Québec town of Saguenay was vandalized with what the vandals claimed was pig blood. The attack was clearly intended to show Muslims that they were not welcome in Saguenay (and perhaps in Québec generally), which is, according to Jeremy Waldron, precisely “the harm in hate speech” which Continue reading
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A Monarchist’s Lament
If you’ve read my bitter vituperations against the decisions of the Ontario courts upholding the constitutionality of the citizenship oath, which requires would-be Canadians to swear “true allegiance to Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors,” you might have concluded that I am a flaming republican. But I am, in fact, a monarchist; Continue reading
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The Economics of Unanimity
It is often thought that judicial unanimity is a valuable commodity. Chief Justices bang heads, twist arms, and break legs in order to get their courts to produce more of it, but they don’t always succeed, and unanimity remains at least somewhat scarce on the U.S. and Canadian Supreme Courts (although more on the former than Continue reading
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Frustrating
I am quite late on this, but I have only recently come across a post by Grégoire Webber on the UK Constitutional Law blog, arguing that the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2013 SCC 72, the decision striking down various prostitution-related provisions of the Criminal Code is based on flawed inferences from the fact that these provisions did not Continue reading
Double Aspect 