-
Is the Charter Really Democratic?
Andrew Coyne had an excellent column in the National Post for the 30th anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which only came across after he re-shared it this week. (Indeed, I had originally thought it was published this week, but he has corrected me. Apologies!) Mr. Coyne argued that the Charter must be seen as…
-
Their Eminences
Commenting on the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down a mandatory minimum sentence in R. v. Nur, 2015 SCC 15 in the National Post, John Ivison joins the list of commentators lamenting the Supreme Court’s “political” decision-making. The dissent by Justice Moldaver, joined by Justices Rothstein and Wagner, makes him say that [w]hen three such eminent…
-
A Prayer for Neutrality
This morning, the Supreme Court delivered its judgment in the municipal prayer case, Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City), 2015 SCC 16, holding that a prayer recited by the Mayor at the beginning of the city council’s meetings, as well the municipal regulation which regulated its recitation, infringed the City’s duty of neutrality and the rights…
-
Nothing Is Always Absolutely So
This morning, the Supreme Court has delivered its decision in R. v. Nur, 2015 SCC 15, striking down as “cruel and unusual,” and therefore contrary to s. 12 of the Charter, a mandatory minimum sentence for the simple possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm that is either loaded or stored with easily accessible ammunition,…
-
About Those Social Values
In its judgment in l’Affaire Nadon, Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6, 2014 SCC 21, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 433, the majority of the Supreme Court notoriously found that one of the roles played by the Court’s Québec judges is to ensure “the representation of Quebec’s … social values on the Court.” [56] In the majority’s…
-
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…
-
Courts and Eligibility to the Senate
I wrote something stupid here earlier. I thought it was very clever, of course. But I didn’t read the Constitution Act 1867, carefully enough. Of course the courts cannot pronounce on the qualifications of a sitting Senator, as Aniz Alani was kind enough to point out to me. Making a public fool of oneself is…
-
Politicians in Robes?
I have a new post up at the CBA National Magazine’s blog, in which I summarize and discuss a most fascinating study by Dan Kahan and his colleagues at Yale’s Cultural Cognition Project. The study tried to establish, empirically, whether judges, lawyers, law students, and members of the general public would be influenced in the…
-
Online Gambling
Over at the EconLog, David Henderson has an interesting post that allows me to come back to some themes I used to carp on quite a bit, but haven’t returned to in a while now. In a nutshell, it is the story of antiwar.com, a website that, naturally enough, illustrates its message with some graphic…
-
Keeping Secrets
I wrote, a while ago now, about the electoral practices of Georgian England, including the brazen, and fantastically expensive, corruption which elections involved. This weekend, the BBC published a fascinating story by Alasdair Gill, looking at a change in the electoral rules that happened during the Victorian age ― in 1872, to be precise ―…
Double Aspect 