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 ...

“Are great public problems best addressed through institutions designed to apply the explicit technical knowledge of experts or by those designed to channel the implicit social knowledge of the community?”[1] Since the enactment of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Canada has experienced a remarkable shift from the latter forum to the former—namely, from legislature to courtroom.[2] Not only has ...

In a post over at Slate, Omar Ha-Redye sets out what his title describes as “A Judicial Vision of Canada at 150 and Beyond“. The post is a rather rambling one, but insofar as I understand its overall purpose, it is meant to highlight the centrality of the Supreme Court to our constitutional framework, as illustrated in particular by the ...

In January, Chief Justice Joyal of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench gave an address at the Canadian Constitution Foundation’s Law & Freedom Conference entitled “The Charter and Canada’s New Political Culture: Are We All Ambassadors Now?” The text of the address was published on this website at the time. The Canadian Constitution Foundation has now released the video of the ...