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Cui Bono?
In a post published last week, Josh Blackman points to an important question that can help us think about the permissibility of public prayer ― not only prayer at municipal council meetings (the post’s immediate context), which the U.S. Supreme Court recently considered in Town of Greece v. Galloway (a case I briefly discussed here) and which…
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Voice After Exit!
In a decision released last week, Frank v. Canada (Attorney-General), 2014 ONSC 907, Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice held that the disenfranchisement of Canadian citizens who have been resident abroad for more than five years is unconstitutional. The provisions of the Canada Elections Act at issue in Frank limited the right to vote from abroad…
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All Greek
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered its judgment in the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway, finding constitutional the town’s practice of opening the monthly meetings of its board with a prayer read by a “chaplain of the month,” chosen from among the town’s religious congregations. I have blogged about…
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True Allegiance
I have blogged at great length about the Canadian citizenship oath, which requires naturalized Canadians to swear “true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, [and] Her Heirs and Successors”. So I’m happy to report that all this blogging has led me to produce a (hopefully) scholarly paper, which I will…
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Les Mal-Famés
Je voudrais commenter brièvement sur la nouvelle qu’une Montréalaise qui s’était opposée à feu le projet péquiste de Charte de la honte dans les médias, Dalila Awada, poursuit certaines personnes et organisations qui, suite à son intervention, l’ont décrite comme associée à des organisations musulmanes, voire une agente d’extrémistes islamistes. Ce faisant, soutient-elle, ils auraient…
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Constitutional Amendment and the Law
I have been a bit harsh on the Supreme Court in my first post on its opinion in the Reference re Senate Reform, 2014 SCC 32, saying that it had reduced the constitutional text to the status of a façade, which hid as much as it revealed of the real constitutional architecture, which only the…
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Aveuglement volontaire
Radio-Canada rapporte que le gouvernement du Parti québécois n’a jamais obtenu un avis juridique formel des avocats du Ministère de la justice au sujet de la constitutionnalité de son projet de Charte de la honte. Le seul avis qu’il a obtenu était celui d’Henri Brun au sujet des « orientations » dont le dévoilement a…
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The Façade and the Edifice
This is my much-delayed post on the Supreme Court’s opinion, issued last Friday, in Reference re Senate Reform, 2014 SCC 32. Although the Court’s conclusions, all of which I had correctly predicted the day before, were not really a surprise, its reasoning was somewhat unexpected. It is also rather vague and difficult to understand. This may have been the…
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It’s a Dangerous Thing…
… To make predictions, especially about the future; so Winston Churchill. But the attraction of doing so is irresistible, so here goes: my forecast for the outcome of the Senate Reference, which the Supreme Court will release tomorrow. (If you need a refresher on the Reference and the issues it raises, as well as another…
