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What Judges Do
First of all, my most abject apologies for the silence of the last couple of weeks. I was swamped (and then trying to recover from being swamped). I have a lot to catch up on, if I can, not least the Supreme Court’s hate speech decision, Saskatchewan (Human Rights Commission) v. Whatcott, 2013 SCC 11. But I want to…
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Rights for Us, or Limits on Them?
I blogged recently about whether, in Canadian constitutional law, corporations can challenge laws as violations of the freedom of religion. The answer, I said, is sometimes yes, and sometimes maybe, depending on the nature of the statute at issue, and maybe on other things too. But does that make sense in theory? A corporation itself…
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Can’t Compel
In “Law Like Love,” W.H. Auden wrote that “we can’t compel” love. He was right of course, and not only in the sense he meant. So holds―without reference to Auden―a decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, R. v. Hall, 2013 ONSC 834. At issue the constitutionality of the exclusion of common law spouses…
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Freedom of Corporate Religion?
A number of cases now working their way through the US court system and attracting a great deal of commentary, some of which Josh Blackman summarizes and/or links to in this post, ask an interesting question: can a corporation challenge a requirement that it provide its employees with health insurance covering, among a great many…
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R.I.P., Ronald Dworkin
“Yes, man is mortal, but that would be just half the trouble. What’s bad is that he is sometimes suddenly mortal; there’s the rub!” Woland’s grim words from Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita ring very true indeed today. Ronald Dworkin’s death this morning comes an absolute shock. Neither nor, I believe, anyone I know was…
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Less Than Meets the Eye?
Last week, the BC Court of Appeal issued what seems to me an important decision upholding the constitutionality of a treaty between the Nisga’a Nation, British Columbia, and Canada, and legislation implementing the treaty. The appellants in Sga’nism Sim’augit (Chief Mountain) v. Canada (Attorney General), 2013 BCCA 49, argued that the treaty and the legislation effected an…
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Independence Be With You
The application of the principle of judicial independence, as the Supreme Court has developed it, to ordinary judges of provincial, federal, and superior courts is clear enough. But the extension of its protections to other judicial officials, such as deputy judges, masters, or prothonotaries still causes friction between the judiciary and the “political branches.” A…
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Freedom and Institutions
The who study the question of religious freedom often wonder why it should benefit and protect not only individual believers, but also religious institutions. Application of religious freedom to institutions such as the Catholic Church―institutions which, needless to say, are not often themselves models of internal liberalism, equality, or democracy―generates a good deal of criticism.…
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Vive le Québec Libre!
Prosecutors in Québec seem to have forgotten that this is a free province in a free country. First, they came for a makeup artist whose gory videos, though involving no actual gore or violence whatsoever, were too realistic for their liking. And then, after a mere busybody concerned citizen complained, they came for a ranting blogger for, apparently,…
Double Aspect 