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 ...

One could scarcely find an area of law so muddied as administrative law. In a recent blog post on Double Aspect,  Leonid Sirota argues (omitting some far more colourful language) that our courts continue to struggle with reconciling the basic concepts of parliamentary supremacy and the rule of law, which are said to be in conflict with one another. The ...

Summer is fast approaching and, in keeping with that season’s custom (though not yet a convention), I thought it best to engage Leonid Sirota in constitutional debate. Last year, we went a few rounds on section 7 of the Charter. This year, the hot topic is s.33 of the Charter, otherwise known as the “notwithstanding clause,” which states that Parliament or ...

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 ...

Few legal concepts have been so little understood yet so much vilified as originalism has been in Canada. Adam Dodek has said that “originalism” is a “dirty word” on this side of the Canada-U.S. border. Following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, Canadian jurists, including former Supreme Court judges, took to the media to remind us that originalism has no ...

Is the Liberal plan to reform the electoral system unconstitutional? Two recent pieces published in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star suggest the answer is yes. The articles are well-written by knowledgeable individuals (respectively, a law professor and two former law clerks), but in my view their reasoning is flawed. Both pieces cite the 2014 Senate Reform Reference, in ...