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Right Answer Romantics
I was re-reading F.A. Hayek’s discussion of the common law in Chapters 4 and 5 of Rules and Order, the first volume of his Law, Legislation and Liberty, and was struck by something I had missed when I first read it four years ago while working on a thesis on common-law constitutionalism. When deciding a case…
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A Question for the SCC
I wrote on Friday, in a post about A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46, the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing a victim of cyber-bullying to bring her defamation suit against the person responsible for it anonymously, that “the interesting question” about the decision is how far does its principle extend: In other words, is…
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Thanks for Nothing
Last week, the Superior Court of Ontario has issued a ruling on two important motions in a challenge to the constitutionality of the abolition by Parliament of the long-gun registry brought by an Ontario NGO, the Barbara Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, which I first mentioned here. The decision, Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic v. Canada, 2012 ONSC 5271, deals…
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Moving the Earth
Last week, the Supreme Court issued an important judgment on the law of public interest standing. Although it might seem like a technical issue, the importance of standing, or locus standi, was already clear to Archimedes 2200 years ago, when he asserted that if given a place to stand, he would move the earth. Ok,…
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There’s Nothing in That Name
This morning, the Supreme Court delivered a decision that is a further small step in the debate about the right of litigants to privacy and the right of the public to know what goes on in our courtrooms. I blogged about these issues here and here. The applicant in the case, A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46, is…
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What’s in a Name?
The CBC has a story about criticisms of Ontario’s rules which allow the publication of the parties’ names in family law court decisions. The availability of these decisions online, especially on CanLII, makes them widely accessible―and people are concerned about others learning the details of their divorces, their personal information, or even seeing allegations made…
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A Strike against Three Strikes
The Superior Court of Ontario has struck down another element of the Conservative government’s “though-on-crime” legislative programme last week, in R. v. Hill, 2012 ONSC 5050. (I blogged about another such case here.) The provision at issue in Hill was s. 753(1.1) of the Criminal Code, which provides that if an accused is convicted of…
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Words and Misdeeds
Following up on my musings here and here on the reasons why we think it is sometimes permissible to punish a person for saying something that is likely to cause others to act in a certain way, and sometimes not, my friend Simon Murray asks a very sensible question: in what other cases do we sanction people…
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Keeping Judges Busy
The Globe and Mail reports that the federal government will go to the Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of its Senate Reform project. Opponents of the reform have dared it to do so for years. They’ll get their wish now. The Supreme Court’s was already asked to rule on Senate reform project once, by Pierre…
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The Rewards of Punishment
I wondered aloud, yesterday, about the difference between falsely shouting “fire” in a theatre and causing a panic, and producing an incendiary video likely to cause murderous violence half a world away. Actually, I wondered whether there was any difference; I wasn’t able to come up with a convincing distinction. Eugene Volokh, over at the…
Double Aspect 