Charter
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Say It Ain’t So
I wrote yesterday about the decision of the Superior Court of Ontario in McAteer v. Canada (Attorney General), 2013 ONSC 5895, which upheld the constitutionality of the reference to the Queen in the oath of allegiance which would-be Canadian citizens must take. As I said in that post, believe that the decision is wrong. Here is… Continue reading
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As Expected
The Superior Court of Ontario has ruled yesterday that the Canadian citizenship oath, which requires would-be citizens to promise “allegiance” to the Queen, is constitutional, thus rejecting the challenge of a group of anti-monarchists who argued that it infringed their freedoms of speech and of religion, as well as their equality rights under the Canadian… Continue reading
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Don’t Come Back!
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a judgment considering the constitutionality of the provisions of the International Transfer of Offenders Act (ITOA) which allow the Canadian government to refuse the application of a Canadian imprisoned abroad to serve his sentence in Canada, despite the agreement of the state where he is currently imprisoned to hand… Continue reading
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Not Even Close
I said I would stop writing about the Québec Charter of Values for a while, but I’ll break that promise already, albeit only to report that a number of law professors have given their views on it in the last couple days. Their verdict is almost unanimous: the proposed Charter’s key part, the prohibition on… Continue reading
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Of Course Not
The Québec government’s proposal for a “Charter of Québec Values” is now official. It’s not much of a proposal, actually ― there is no bill, and there isn’t going to be for months yet ― but we do have a fancy website on which the government explains what the Charter will do. (The English version isn’t… Continue reading
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Challenging Succession
Parliament made many people unhappy when it enacted the Succession to the Throne Act, S.C. 2013 c. 6, “assent[ing] to” the British legislation allowing a woman to succeed to the Crown despite having a younger brother, or a person to succeed to the Crown despite being married to a Catholic. Among those unhappy was one… Continue reading
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All Quiet on the Western Front
The confrontation between freedom of expression and protection of individual reputation by the law of defamation is as good an example of interminable global legal trench warfare as any. (Well, except in the United States, where one battle proved largely decisive in favour of free speech.) In Canada, freedom of expression has made some gains… Continue reading
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Vies Communes
Il y a quelques jours, je parlais des promesses que l’État peut ou ne peut pas exiger de gens à l’occasion de leur mariage. Cependant, dans les faits, les provinces de common law n’exigent pas que les gens qui se marient civilement promettent quoi que ce soit au sujet de leur vie future. Le Québec,… Continue reading
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The Crown and the Oath
A friend comments on my earlier post, in which I argued that the oath of allegiance to the Queen which would-be Canadian citizens are required to swear is unconstitutional: The wording of the oath of allegiance found in the Citizenship Act flows directly from the preamble and various sections of the Constitution Act, 1867 which… Continue reading
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Empty Promise
I wrote yesterday about the challenge now being considered by the Superior Court of Ontario to the constitutionality of the wording of the oath of allegiance that would-be Canadian citizens must swear or affirm. The oath requires one to promise loyalty and fidelity to the Queen, her heirs, and successors. As I explained, the Federal… Continue reading
Double Aspect 