Fourteen months ago, I published a post here on two recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions that potentially liberalized the ability to use motions to strike to determine questions of law. I explained how this can benefit both the rule of law and access to justice. This conceptualization of access to justice is not based on abstract notions of justice ...

On October 12, 2021, Advocates for the Rule of Law returned to the Supreme Court of Canada in Her Majesty the Queen, et al. v. David Sullivan, et al. and Her Majesty the Queen, et al. v. Thomas Chan, et al. (SCC 39270) to make submissions on the effect of a declaration under s. 52(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 ...

On October 6, 2019, I had the pleasure of speaking at a conference entitled “Constitutional Democracy Under Stress.” The conference was hosted by Section 1 and its founder, Peter Biro, who incidentally was one of my early mentors when I was a summer student. Mr. Biro, whose article for ARL on the Section 1 project can be read here, gathered ...

Five years ago, I founded Advocates for the Rule of Law with a small group of like-minded lawyers. We were concerned with what we perceived to be a growing disregard for the rule of law, and a move toward what some – including most notably, Justice Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada – have called the “rule of justice.” ...

Advocates for the Rule of Law returned to the Supreme Court of Canada last month in the Stillman and Beaudry appeals to make important submissions on the topic of stare decisis. I attended with my co-counsel, Adam Goldenberg and Peter Grbac. Mr. Goldenberg’s oral submissions were stellar and the panel kept him up for an additional few minutes to ask him ...

On March 8, 2019, ARL filed its factum at the Supreme Court of Canada in Stillman v. The Queen and R. v. Beaudry. We have previously written about how these military justice appeals offer the Court a rare opportunity to provide guidance on the doctrine of horizontal stare decisis. ARL’s factum proposes a framework that we hope will assist the ...

For the third time in little more than a year, the Supreme Court of Canada has granted Advocates for the Rule of Law leave to intervene to assist the Court in addressing a significant public law issue. This time, ARL will make submissions on when intermediate appellate courts may depart from their own binding precedents. This question of horizontal stare ...

Earlier this month, Advocates for the Rule of Law appeared as an intervenor in the Bell/NFL and Vavilov appeals at the Supreme Court. Prior to the hearing, the Court advised the parties that these appeals would present an opportunity to reconsider the Court’s seminal decision in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, released a decade ago.  Consequently, various organizations, including ARL, moved to intervene in the case. ...

For those interested in reading ARL’s factum in the standard of review appeals, it can be read here. Thank you again to our excellent counsel at McCarthy’s, especially Adam Goldenberg, for putting together such a superb factum.

The Supreme Court of Canada released its decision today in Mikisew Cree First Nation v. Canada (Governor General in Council). The decision significantly deals with whether there is a duty on the government to consult with Aboriginal groups prior to introducing legislation.  The Court held (7-2) that no such duty exists. However, 3 of the 7 justices were somewhat equivocal in their ...