Canada
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Continuing the Conventions Conversation
Yesterday, I suggested that we may be in the midst of a change in the conventions pertaining to the formation of government after an election that results in what the British call a “hung Parliament” ― one in which no party has a majority of seats. Traditional convention allows the incumbent government to remain in office… Continue reading
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Constitutional Metamorphosis
The major party leaders have made some curious statements regarding the formation of a government in the aftermath of an election where no party claims the majority of seats. First Thomas Mulcair, then Stephen Harper, and then Justin Trudeau as well, have asserted that whichever party wins more seats than the others should be called on by the… Continue reading
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Don’t Blame the Courts
Critics of judicial review of legislation, such as Jeremy Waldron, argue that judicial invalidation of democratically enacted laws often occurs in the realm of reasonable disagreement. Perhaps we have a moral right to assisted suicide; perhaps not; it’s a difficult question and we can disagree about the answer ― and it’s not obvious that in… Continue reading
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Living with Imperfect Judges
The arguments about limiting appointments to the Supreme Court to bilingual candidates are rather tired, not to mention more or less moot. But they keep coming back, over and over again. I actually wrote about the topic a while ago, but since it is in the news again, following the appointment of (the apparently bilingual)… Continue reading
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What’s the Big Deal?
The Globe and Mail’s Sean Fine has for months been pushing a “conservative judicial appointments” narrative, and he was back at it this weekend, with a lengthy piece on “Stephen Harper’s Courts.” We are, I take it, supposed to be worried about a “judiciary [that] has been remade” by ideologically shaped appointments. Mr. Fine quotes quite a… Continue reading
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Dismiss Him
The Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has announced that he will no longer be making any Senate appointments. Not that he had been making any recently ― in the last couple of years in fact. However, just last month, for the purposes of contesting Aniz Alani’s court challenge to the apparent policy of non-appointment, the federal government’s… Continue reading
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Shut Up!
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled that Parliament can disenfranchise Canadians who live abroad. The judgment, Frank v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 ONCA 536, reverses that of the Superior Court, which had ruled that the provisions of the Canada Elections Act that prevent Canadians who have resided abroad for more than five years are… Continue reading
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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… Continue reading
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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… Continue reading
Double Aspect 