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Rule & Exemption in Action
Emmett Macfarlane has an interesting post for Maclean’s discussing the legal and constitutional complexities of the brewing confrontation between the Mayor of Montréal, Denis Coderre, and the federal government about the possible opening of a number of supervised-injection centres in the city. In a nutshell, prof. Macfarlane points out that the federal government’s proposed (although still…
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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…
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Minimum Agreement
In R. v. Nur, 2015 SCC 15, Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the mandatory minimum sentence Parliament had imposed for the crime of possessing a restricted or a prohibited firearm, either loaded or with ammunition nearby, without the appropriate license. Justices Rothstein, Moldaver, and Wagner dissented, arguing that the majority’s approach to assessing the constitutionality of mandatory…
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Let’s Hear It
I’ve mentioned Aniz Alani’s challenge to the constitutionality of the Prime Minister’s apparent and admitted policy of not making any Senate appointments before. The federal government moved to strike Mr. Alani’s application for judicial review, arguing that it had no chance of success, and also that the Federal Court had no jurisdiction to hear it. Yesterday, that…
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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…
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Plus ça change…
This is the fourth and last post in the series about my most recent article, “‘Third Parties’ and Democracy 2.0″, (2015) 60:2 McGill LJ 253. On Monday, I introduced the paper, which deals with the repercussions of political and technological changes on our framework for regulating the participation of persons other than parties and candidates in pre-electoral…
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The Party’s Over
This is the second post in the series about my most recent article, “‘Third Parties’ and Democracy 2.0”, (2015) 60:2 McGill LJ 253. I introduced the paper, which deals with the repercussions of political and technological changes on our framework for regulating the participation of persons other than parties and candidates in pre-electoral debate, yesterday. Today,…
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“Third Parties” and Democracy 2.0
The McGill Law Journal recently published a paper of mine, “‘Third Parties’ and Democracy 2.0”, (2015) 60:2 McGill LJ 253, about which I haven’t yet had the chance to brag here. Unfortunately, I won’t be able (pursuant to the Journal’s policy) to upload the full text of the paper to SSRN for a while. But…
Double Aspect 