Many of Donald Trump’s actions during his first weeks as President have understandably unsettled much of the world. However, there are already hopeful signs that they will be resisted by some combination of public protest, the courts, and/or, at the very least, his successor. So the recent nomination of 49-year old Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch to the United ...
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The Paradoxical Presumption of Constitutionality
INTRODUCTION Should the courts, in judicially reviewing legislation, employ a presumption constitutionality? Should they, in other words, presume that a law enacted by Parliament or the provincial legislatures is constitutionally valid, rebutting that presumption only in the face of convincing evidence? The answer to this question is not as clear as one might suppose. In the context of the division ...
Read More »Wilson v. AECL: A Missed Opportunity to Protect the Rule of Law in Administrative Law
This summer saw a sharply divided Supreme Court of Canada on many points. The case of Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., 2016 SCC 29 illustrated this perhaps better than any other, with the Court issuing four separate opinions. Many issues are raised in the case, from whether certain non-unionized federally regulated employees can be dismissed without cause to the number ...
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