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Quand on se compare
Les traditions tant française qu’américaine de laïcité sont moins monolithiques qu’on ne l’a parfois prétendu. Reste qu’imposer la « neutralité » aux individus est injustifié.
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Inside the Empirical Turn
A judge’s take on dealing with the social science evidence involved in Charter litigation.
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Thanksgiving
Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, Will Baude has posted the text of a proclamation issued by George Washington, then the President of the United States, in 1789, to call for national Thanksgiving celebrations, and an excerpt from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1808, when he was President, to explain his refusal to issue a…
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The Market for Political Lemons
Andrew Coyne is right that political promise-breaking can be a big problem, but he might still be wrong about it needing to be solved.
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How Power Corrupts III
I have already touched on the issue of the meaning of Lord Acton’s dictum, that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I have invoked J.R.R. Tolkien’s treatment of the pernicious influence of power on those who once wield it even once they relinquish it, and discussed Mikhail Bulgakov’s claim that “all power is violence done to people.” Boris…
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Damned Lies
One of the most pressing, if not the most pressing, problems in contemporary politics is the problem of lies. Perhaps it is not so much a contemporary as a permanent problem, though that does not make any less urgent. But perhaps it is even more pressing now, due to the intellectual trends permeating our society,…
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Tell Them Carefully
Cross-border disclosure of wiretaps survives the scrutiny of a (politely) divided Supreme Court.
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L’Affaire Mainville: The Québec Factum
Some serious flaws in Québec’s arguments against the constitutionality of Justice Mainville’s appointment to the Québec Court of Appeal.
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The Elephant in the Room : l’inexplicable constitutionnalité de l’intégralité des traités modernes
À l’occasion de ma série de billets sur l’arrêt Tsilhqot’in, j’avais affirmé que, si elle devait être tenue pour cruciale, la question de la portée précise de la compétence fédérale exclusive sur les autochtones et des conditions auxquelles les provinces peuvent constitutionnellement intervenir en ce domaine qu’est le droit des autochtones n’avait pourtant toujours pas trouvé…
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St-Hilaire on Federalism and “Modern Treaties”
Just a quick announcement of an upcoming guest post by Maxime St-Hilaire, a friend who teaches aboriginal law and constitutional law at the Université de Sherbrooke. Prof. St-Hilaire, who blogged this summer on the Supreme Court’s decision in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44, will discuss some issues left open by the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence…
Double Aspect 