Post-doctoral Fellow at the Queen’s Faculty of Law and Research Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Constitutional Law Center Thanks very much to Leonid Sirota and Mark Mancini for kindly inviting me to contribute to this symposium. I thought about which cases to include in my list of the “worst” Supreme Court cases of the 1967-2017 Continue reading

We at Double Aspect are very excited to host this important symposium. As I’ve written before, I think it is necessary for observers to turn a critical eye to the Supreme Court’s cases. Those of us interested in doing so should not shirk behind the ceremony of the bench. Here is my list of the Continue reading

Associate Professor, Université de Sherbrooke and visiting scholar at SciencePo Paris Law School Dupond v City of Montreal, [1978] 2 SCR 770 In this case, provisions of a Montreal bylaw (still in force: see Villeneuve c Ville de Montréal, 2018 QCCA  321) allowing the city to temporarily ban an assembly, parade, or other gathering due to public Continue reading

Partner in Torys LLP litigation group specializing in public law, IP, and appellate practice I was delighted to be invited [1] to participate in Double Aspect’s Twelve Days of Christmas “Worst Supreme Court of Canada cases 1967-2017,” with a group of knowledgeable scholars, pundits and practitioners.[2] I was even more delighted to be able to submit Continue reading

Assistant Professor, University of New Brunswick Gosselin v Quebec (Attorney General), 2002 SCC 84, [2002] 4 SCR 429 A truly god-awful section 15 Charter decision penned by McLachlin CJ (as she then was), commonly regarded as the “high watermark” of formalism under the previous “human dignity” test.  The majority found it “dignity affirming,” for under Continue reading

Professor of Law and Canada Research Chair, University of Saskatchewan My identification of the five worst Supreme Court of Canada cases stems from cases that both manifest particularly problematic judicial methodology and whose influence has pervaded other cases.  The judgment is not about policy/political result but about legal method and legal consequences. In chronological order, Continue reading

Visiting Doctoral Researcher, NYU School of Law When asked to write about what I considered the Supreme Court of Canada’s “worst” decisions of the past several decades, I was somewhat reluctant. One must always tread a fine line between criticizing flawed reasoning and the rule of law that the Court symbolizes. But hey… it’s Christmas Continue reading

Professor of Law, University of Saskatchewan Many thanks to Leonid for inviting me to participate. I have focused on a few cases drawn from the substantive criminal law canon, picking out those which I think raise special concerns about the relationship between the courts and Parliament. Fa-la-la-la-la…. R v Jobidon, [1991] 2 SCR 714 Strictly speaking, Continue reading

Partner at Matthews Abogado LLP in Toronto and founder of Advocates for the Rule of Law, a legal think tank The Double Aspect bloggers, Leonid Sirota and Mark Mancini, have kindly asked me to provide my list of the five worst Supreme Court of Canada decisions in the modern era. I am presenting my list Continue reading

Professor of Law, Queen’s University R v Oakes, [1986] 1 SCR 103 The Supreme Court’s decision in Oakes may have seemed innocent enough at the time but it is where the trouble begins: the Supreme Court’s assertion of the authority to decide questions of social policy, the scourge of proportionality, and the erosion of the Continue reading