judicial appointments
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« Suffisamment québécois »
Le nouveau juge en chef de la Cour d’appel fédérale, Marc Noël, a récemment prononcé un discours qui explique très bien les problèmes soulevés par l’avis rendu par la Cour suprême dans l’Affaire Nadon, Renvoi relatif à la Loi sur la Cour suprême, art. 5 et 6, 2014 CSC 21, [2014] 1 R.C.S. 433. Ces problèmes, sont aussi au Continue reading
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The Mainville Hearing: Beyond Interpretation
The “soft” issues in the Mainville Reference: being a Québec jurist, and public confidence in the courts. Continue reading
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The Mainville Hearing: Interpretive Issues
On Wednesday, I was at the Québec Court of Appeal as it heard the oral arguments in the reference on the constitutionality of Justice Mainville’s appointment. The Québec government, supported by Rocco Galati (a Toronto lawyer who had originally challenged Justice Mainville’s appointment before the federal court) and the Constitutional Rights Centre Inc. (a public 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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Mainville Reference Factums
Thanks to the good offices of a friend, I have been able to get my hands on the factums filed in the Mainville Reference, in which the Québec Court of Appeal will consider the constitutionality of the appointment of a judge of the federal courts to a superior court of Québec ― and, more specifically, Continue reading
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The Mainville Appointment Is Constitutional
It’s taken me a long time to gather my thoughts on this, but here goes, half-baked though they still are. As everybody knows, Justice Robert Mainville, of the Federal Court of Appeal, has been appointed to the Québec Court of Appeal, and Rocco Galati, the lawyer who first challenged the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon Continue reading
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Le festival harpérien de l’insconstitutionnalité se poursuit : la nomination du juge Mainville à la Cour d’appel du Québec
Le vendredi 13 juin 2014, l’hon. Robert Mainville, alors juge de la Cour d’appel fédérale, a été nommé juge de la Cour d’appel du Québec par le gouverneur général sur la recommandation du premier ministre fédéral. Contrairement à ce que, jusqu’ici, ont laissé entendre certains experts et chroniqueurs, cette nomination est à notre avis inconstitutionnelle. Continue reading
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Don’t Rebuild It
I wrote yesterday about the uncertain constitutionality of the federal government’s outsourcing of the choice of potential nominees for the Supreme Court to the government of Québec (or any other province). The government’s reliance on such a process is, according to the Globe’s Sean Fine, who broke the story yesterday, not intended to create a precedent. But Continue reading
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Conventional Thinking
There is big news on the Supreme Court appointment front today, which is arguably not getting enough attention. According to the Globe’s Sean Fine, “[t]he Conservative government has turned to Quebec to create a candidate list for the Supreme Court of Canada” ― asking the provincial government to submit names of potential replacements for Justice Fish Continue reading
Double Aspect 