judges
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For a Formidable Opposition
The CBA National Magazine’s blog published a new post of mine yesterday, in which I argue that it is important that courts and their decisions be scrutinized and, on occasion, criticized. As the debate debate about “judicial activism” has been playing out in the last month or so (there are, at this point, too many… Continue reading
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A Diversity of Diversities
There has been some rather unpleasant controversy over judicial appointments of late, following the appointment of professors Grant Huscroft and Bradley Miller to the bench in Ontario. The Globe and Mail‘s Sean Fine has been busily pushing the narrative of “conservative” appointments, focusing on the new appointees’ criticism of Canadian courts and laws. On Twitter, La… Continue reading
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Inside the Empirical Turn
A judge’s take on dealing with the social science evidence involved in Charter litigation. Continue reading
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L’Affaire Mainville: The Québec Factum
Some serious flaws in Québec’s arguments against the constitutionality of Justice Mainville’s appointment to the Québec Court of Appeal. Continue reading
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St-Hilaire on Federalism and “Modern Treaties”
Just a quick announcement of an upcoming guest post by Maxime St-Hilaire, a friend who teaches aboriginal law and constitutional law at the Université de Sherbrooke. Prof. St-Hilaire, who blogged this summer on the Supreme Court’s decision in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44, will discuss some issues left open by the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence… Continue reading
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Ideology and Canadian Judges
In case you missed my self-promotion yesterday, my new post a the CBA National Magazine’s blog is up. It argues that we need to change the ways in which we think about and study judicial ideology in Canada. Simply importing American models, which rely on using the party of the president who appointed a judge, or… Continue reading
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Shifting the Culture of Rationing
As Justice Karakatsanis observed in the opening paragraph of her reasons (for the unanimous Supreme Court) in Hryniak v. Mauldin, 2014 SCC 7, [2014] 1 S.C.R. 87 “[t]rials have become increasingly expensive and protracted.” For the Supreme Court, the length and expense of trials is an access to justice problem. But (at least some) provincial governments, notably that… Continue reading
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The Economics of Unanimity
It is often thought that judicial unanimity is a valuable commodity. Chief Justices bang heads, twist arms, and break legs in order to get their courts to produce more of it, but they don’t always succeed, and unanimity remains at least somewhat scarce on the U.S. and Canadian Supreme Courts (although more on the former than… Continue reading
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Danger: Judges Blogging
My second post for the CBA’s National Magazine is up. It deals with the question of whether judges should refrain from blogging, prompted by an ongoing controversy over a blog post by an American judge, Richard G. Kopf, in which he recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court “stfu”. This controversy has now reached the mainstream… Continue reading
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Lies, Damned Lies, and Judicial Review
As the federal government considers its response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2013 SCC 72, which invalidated the prostitution-related provisions of the Criminal Code, one can be forgiven for wondering whether its response will be guided by facts and research, or by ideology. Unfortunately, as a depressing but important guest post by Maggie… Continue reading
Double Aspect 