HomeTag Archives: Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Tag Archives: Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Nothing to Declare: Part II

This is the second of a two-part essay written by Professor Maxime St-Hilaire and Xavier Foccroulle Ménard. Part I can be read here. Assessment of the Fourth Argument on British, Australian and New Zealand Law While not convincing, we find the comparative argument to have more weight, and this despite the following clarification. Grégoire Webber, Eric Mendelshon and Robert Leckey give two examples taken from Australian law: that of the Human ...

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Nothing to Declare: A Response to Grégoire Webber, Eric Mendelsohn, Robert Leckey and Léonid Sirota on the Effects of the Notwithstanding Clause

The following is the first in a two-part series. Part II will be published next week. Introduction In the wake of the legal challenge to Quebec’s law on state secularism,[1] Professor Grégoire Webber, lawyer Eric Mendelsohn and Dean Robert Leckey jointly published a post in which they argue that the invocation of the “notwithstanding clause” in s.33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not preclude a court from making a declaration on ...

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R. v. Stillman: A Missed Opportunity for Guidance on Stare Decisis

On July 26, 2019, in R. v. Stillman, 2019 SCC 40,the Supreme Court of Canada held by a 5-2 majority that a member of the Canadian Forces does not have the right to trial by jury for a “civilian” criminal offence for which they are charged under the National Defence Act (the “NDA”). Section 130(1)(a) of the NDA converts any ...

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Deconstructing Section 28

Professor Kerri Froc has written a thoughtful guest post for Double Aspect, in which she argues that s. 28 of the Charter is not merely an interpretive provision, but is rather a substantive and justiciable section in its own right. The implication if she is correct should not be understated. Section 28 states: Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights ...

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The Original Meaning of Military Law

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 ...

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Substantive Equality: Some People are More Equal Than Others

Double Aspect, the law blog of Leonid Sirota and Mark Mancini, recently hosted The 12 Days of Christmas, in which contributors offered their picks for the five worst public law Supreme Court of Canada decisions between 1967 and 2017. My list included Andrews, which I criticized for starting the mess that the Supreme Court has made of section 15(1) of ...

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In Defence of Substantive Equality

In a guest post on the Double Aspect Blog over the Christmas break, Professor Bruce Pardy (Queen’s Law) picked the Supreme Court’s decision in Andrews as one of the worst decisions since 1967. While I believe Professor Pardy offered some important criticisms of the Court in his post, I must respectfully disagree with his attack on the Andrews decision and ...

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Understanding Unconstitutionality

The following is an excerpt from Mr. Peltomaa’s recently published text, Understanding Unconstitutionality: How a Country Lost its Way.    Courts are often said to “strike down” laws that conflict with the Constitution. An image is evoked of black-robed judges hurling bolts of lightning in Zeus-like manner, thereby destroying the legal efficacy of unconstitutional laws and expunging them from the ...

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Constitutionalism from the Cave

The imbroglio with the Ontario legislature’s enactment of Bill 5 to restructure the Toronto City Council a couple of months before an upcoming election, the Superior Court’s declaration of that legislation unconstitutional, the threatened invocation of the “notwithstanding clause” to override that declaration, and the Court of Appeal’s restoration of what little sanity could still be restored by reversing the Superior ...

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Discussing the Notwithstanding Clause

I had the real privilege today of appearing on Your Morning on CTV to chat about the notwithstanding clause with host Ben Mulroney. In particular, we discussed the threat of premier-designate, François Legault to invoke s.33 of the Charter preemptively in legislation that would ban public servants and officials from wearing religious symbols. The full interview can be accessed here. ...

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