{"id":8,"date":"2014-06-09T17:22:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T17:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/?page_id=8"},"modified":"2021-06-24T19:28:25","modified_gmt":"2021-06-24T19:28:25","slug":"about-arl","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/about-arl\/","title":{"rendered":"About ARL"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Advocates for the Rule of Law (ARL)<\/strong> is a registered Canadian charity and legal think-tank dedicated to promoting the rule of law.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201crule of law\u201d means that society is governed by fixed rules that are announced\u00a0in advance and are predictably and consistently applied. It means that all individuals are equal before the law and that all government officials are subordinate to and subject to the law.<\/p>\n<p>ARL is non-partisan. Our members come from diverse backgrounds and have divergent political views. What unites\u00a0us\u00a0is a shared belief in the rule of law, and the following ten propositions which flow from that basic concept:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Constitutionalism: The\u00a0Constitution is the supreme law of the land and can only be amended pursuant to its own amending formula. All government power is derived from and limited by\u00a0the Constitution.<\/li>\n<li>Everything is permitted except that which is proscribed by law.<\/li>\n<li>Laws should be legislated by the legislature, executed by the executive and applied by an independent judiciary.<\/li>\n<li>Laws should avoid broad regulatory discretion wherever possible.<\/li>\n<li>Statutes should establish rights, obligations and prohibitions in\u00a0clear and precise\u00a0language.<\/li>\n<li>Laws that are not enforced or enforceable undermine faith in the rule of law.<\/li>\n<li>The courts should apply judicial precedents except where the precedent is clearly wrong and\/or has proven unworkable in practice.<\/li>\n<li>Statutes\u00a0should be interpreted by looking to the ordinary meaning of the text in its full statutory context.<\/li>\n<li>Legal disputes should be decided in accordance with the law, not the sympathies of the particular case.<\/li>\n<li>All legislative and administrative actions should be subject to judicial review; but the role of the courts is &#8220;to apply the law, not to make it.&#8221;*<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The rule of law is the foundation of a free society; but it cannot be taken for granted. There will always be a strong temptation for arbitrary and discretionary decision-making. Our goal is to advocate the central importance of the rule of law and to highlight the social, political and financial costs we all suffer when the rule of law is trampled upon.<\/p>\n<p>Canada&#8217;s stability and success have been made possible by an enduring Constitution and a vast cultural inheritance, of which the rule of law has been an essential feature. ARL is committed to educating the public about our legal history and traditions and to demonstrating that the rule of law has always been a &#8220;fundamental postulate of our constitutional structure.&#8221;**<\/p>\n<p><b>New Programs<\/b><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn collaboration with the Runnymede Society, ARL provided a legal education seminar in February 2020 entitled \u201cLitigating Constitutional Issues\u201d which was accredited by the Law Society of Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>*<em>Severn v. Ontario<\/em>, (1878), 2 S.C.R. 70 at 103 (dissent);\u00a0 <em>C<\/em><span class=\"SS_L3\"><span class=\"verdana\"><span class=\"SS_L1\"><span class=\"bold\"><em>urrie v. Harris Lithographing Co.,<\/em> <span class=\"SS_L3\"><span class=\"verdana\"><span class=\"SS_L2\">[1917] O.J. No. 52<\/span><\/span><\/span> (C.A.); \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><em>R. v. Crosstown Motors Ltd., <\/em><span class=\"SS_L2\">[1974] A.J. No. 132, para. 31 (Ct. Jus).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>** <span class=\"SS_L3\"><span class=\"verdana\"><em>Roncarelli v. Duplessis<\/em> [1959] S.C.R. 121 at p. 142<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advocates for the Rule of Law (ARL) is a registered Canadian charity and legal think-tank dedicated to promoting the rule of law. The \u201crule of law\u201d means that society is governed by fixed rules that are announced\u00a0in advance and are predictably and consistently applied. It means that all individuals are equal before the law and &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3500,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8\/revisions\/3500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruleoflaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}