judges
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What Makes a Judge Great?
Most students of law – not just law students – probably have a favourite judge, or judges. Someone whose judicial performance – his or her decisions and opinions – we regard as outstanding and exemplary. But what is it that makes a judge great? Or, more modestly, what makes a judge good? There several ways… Continue reading
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Emergency Wiretaps and Privacy Rights
Well, the Supreme Court of Canada has great timing. Or maybe I do, but saying that would be immodest, right? In any case, the day after I wrote that the Court latest privacy decision was a mess, it has released its decision in R. v. Tse, 2012 SCC 16, addressing the conflict bewteen the right to privacy… Continue reading
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Privacy in the Past, Present, and Future
Our own actions – individual and collective – set the upper limit of our privacy rights. We will never have more privacy rights than we care to have, although we often have fewer. One stark illustration of this idea comes in Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Dead Past,” in which a group of scientists build… Continue reading
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Purely Hypothetical Dragons
Everyone knows that dragons don’t exist. But while this simplistic formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the scientific mind. … The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical. They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted… Continue reading
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Federal Court Roulette
Professor Sean Rehaag of Osgoode Hall has recently posted on SSRN a disturbing statistical analysis of the Federal Court of Canada’s decisions on applications for judicial review of refugee protection determinations by the Immigration and Refugee Board. His main conclusion, based on a study of more than 20,000 cases filed between 2006 and 2010, is… Continue reading
Double Aspect 