equality
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More Dead than Ever
While the Supreme Court is getting ready for the oral argument in Québec’s challenge to the abolition of the long-gun registry by the federal government (set for October 8), a different challenge to the constitutionality of the Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act was dismissed by Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice earlier this month in Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic Continue reading
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Where Credit Is Due
In a recent decision, R. v. Safarzadeh-Markhali, 2014 ONCA 627, the Court of Appeal for Ontario invalidated yet another piece of the federal government “tough on crime” legislative programme, namely subs. 719(3.1) of the Criminal Code, which has the effect of preventing judges from granting enhanced credit for pre-sentence imprisonment to offenders who are not released on Continue reading
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#SochiProblems
There has been a great deal of talk over the last several months about the way one ought to react to the Olympics in Sochi in light of Russia’s ban on “propaganda of homosexuality” or whatever Russian prosecutors construe as “propaganda of homosexuality.” People have, in order of decreasing glamour and increasing effectiveness, boycotted a Continue reading
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“We All Have to Compromise”
Once again, apologies for the last week’s silence. I have a good excuse for once, however: I was in Israel to participate in a workshop on the “Law in a Changing Transnational World” at the Tel-Aviv University. The workshop was very instructive, and I plan on having a few posts in the coming days and Continue reading
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Égalité, Liberté?
As I was thinking about the application of the liberty interest protected by s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the family/marriage context, which I have written about here and here, a question occurred to me: why wasn’t it invoked to argue for the unconstitutionality of denying same-sex couple the opportunity to Continue reading
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Multiple Perspectives
I wrote, back in February, about Martin v. Canada (Attorney General), 2013 FCA 15, a case in which the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that Parliament’s failure to provide double unemployment insurance benefits to parents of newborn twins (allowing them to take twice as much time off work as the parents of an only child) was Continue reading
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Can’t Compel
In “Law Like Love,” W.H. Auden wrote that “we can’t compel” love. He was right of course, and not only in the sense he meant. So holds―without reference to Auden―a decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, R. v. Hall, 2013 ONSC 834. At issue the constitutionality of the exclusion of common law spouses Continue reading
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Different But Equal
Most claims under the Charter‘s equality provision, s. 15(1), allege violations of the principle that like cases ought to be treated alike. So, for example, the appellant A. in the Supreme Court’s decision on the post-separation rights of common law spouses in Québec argued that common law couples are really like married ones, and should Continue reading
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Vive la Différence!
It was a long time in coming, but the Supreme Court has finally delivered its ruling regarding the constitutionality of Québec’s (absence of) legal regime for de facto (a.k.a. common law) couples. The dispute pitted a wealthy businessman, identified by the Supreme Court as “B”, against his former common law spouse (and mother of his Continue reading
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Difference without Discrimination
The Québec Court of Appeal delivered an important decision last Friday, Droit de la famille ― 139, 2013 QCCA 13, upholding the constitutionality of Québec’s child-support guidelines, despite the fact that their application results, in many cases, in substantially lower child-support awards than that of the federal guidelines which, in one way or another, now Continue reading
Double Aspect 