judicial appointments
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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
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What You Wish For
As promised, here are some thoughts on the Supreme Court’s opinion in l’affaire Nadon, Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6, 2014 SCC 21. As I mentioned in my last post, which summarized the majority opinion and Justice Moldaver’s dissent, I think that the majority opinion is a weak one. I should note that my views here seem to be very… Continue reading
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No-don
Yesterday, the Supreme Court has delivered its opinion concerning the legality and constitutionality of the appointment (and swearing in by the Court!) of Justice Nadon, Reference re Supreme Court Act, ss. 5 and 6, 2014 SCC 21. By a 6-1 majority, it finds that Justice Nadon’s appointment was not authorized by s. 6 of the Supreme Court Act, and that the enactment by Parliament… Continue reading
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Cross-Purposes
I wrote some time ago about the challenges, legal and political, to the appointment of Justice Marc Nadon to the Supreme Court. I argued that although the appointment was unwise because Justice Nadon did not bring enough to the Court, the legal challenge to it, on the basis that he did not fulfill the requirements… Continue reading
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The Right Person to Ask
There was an interesting op-ed in yesterday’s Globe by Adam Dodek, arguing that the mechanism which the federal government has devised for bringing greater transparency to the appointment of new Supreme Court judges, namely the interview of the new appointee by a special committee of the House of Commons, is a failure, and that instead… Continue reading
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Tempest in a Teapot
I’m quite late to the topic, but I want to say something about the debacle that is Justice Nadon’s appointment to the Supreme Court. The government’s decision to appoint him is being attacked both legally and politically, and while the political criticism cannot undo it, the legal challenge could, in theory, and has already forced… Continue reading
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Yes, Minister, But…
According to the Globe and Mail, the federal Justice minister, Rob Nicholson, was recently asked about the propriety of a hypothetical (actually, rumoured) appointment of a cabinet minister to the bench. The Globe reports that “[h]e said he did not believe that certain individuals should be ruled out as judges. ‘I’ve never gone out of… Continue reading
Double Aspect 