The rules governing hearsay evidence have seen a period of dramatic upheaval since 1990, when the SCC released its judgment in R v Khan, [1990] 2 SCR 531 [Khan]. Prior to that decision, all hearsay evidence was inadmissible unless it fell within one of a number of categorical exceptions developed through the common law. Khan signaled the […]
The Supreme Court's docket includes hearings today and tomorrow. In today's case, Dunne v Quebec (Deputy Minister of Revenue), Mr. Dunne, a resident of Ontario who has never lived or worked in Quebec, is appealing a decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal (see 2005 QCCA 739 (French)). As a retired partner of Ernst & Young, […]
To mark the 25th anniversary of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, several special events and publiations have taken place. The McGill Institute for the Study of Canada made the Charter the subject of its 2007 conference, held February 14-16: The Charter @ 25 / La Charte @ 25 ans. The Institute for Research on […]
Administrative law is often obscure, but the Supreme Court over the past year or two has been embroiled in a particularly technical administrative law question around which tribunals have jurisdiction over which kinds of disputes and whether more than one tribunal may have jurisdiction over the same dispute. Like many technical questions in administrative law, […]
South Africa's Constitutional Court, the highest court on Constitutional matters and matters connected with decisions on constitutional matters, came into existence at the end of 1994 as a direct result of the country's transition from apartheid rule to democracy. Because the South African judiciary was severely tainted by its role in enforcing apartheid legislation, constitutional […]
The Supreme Court is going to hear arguments today about whether the federal government's Tobacco Act, SC 1997, c 13, passed in 1997 in response to the SCC's 1995 decision in RJR-MacDonald Inc v Canada (Attorney General), [1995] 3 SCR 199 [RJR-MacDonald], passes constitutional muster. Recall that in RJR-Macdonald, the SCC struck down certain provisions of […]
When I graduate, I want to be a lawyer like Sheldon Blank (who, incidentally, is not a lawyer and has no legal training.) He has represented himself as defendant, petitioner and plaintiff, and has done so in the criminal, civil and appellate courts. His ten year legal saga began when environmental and then criminal charges […]
The Court presents, in conjunction with the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, a recording of a talk given by Peter Hogg, Dean Emeritus of Osgoode Hall Law School and Scholar in Residence at the Toronto office of Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP. This is a preview of his upcoming article (co-authored with Allison Bushell Thornton and […]
When reading cases, I often make snap judgments about what should be the right result before going through the relevant legal analysis (I suspect there are others who do the same). In tort actions, such gut instincts frequently nudge me towards principles of distributive rather than corrective justice. I would rather see a sympathetic and […]
In her speech in August 2004 to the Canadian Bar Association in Winnipeg, Chief Justice McLachlin stated that the appointment process is of particular importance to judicial independence. In this speech she thanks the Bar for their efforts in safeguarding the process, an action that she characterizes as part of the legal profession's responsibility to […]