The Constitutional Court of Kenya has come under international spotlight after a petition challenging the constitutionality of the trial of Jesus Christ was thrown on its laps late in August, 2007. This unique petition and number of decisions through which Kenya’s highest court, the Court of Appeal, has broken new jurisprudential ground, comprise this second […]
Yu-Sung Soh, in a previous post, expressed his frustration over what he perceived as an absence of common sense in R. v. Rhyason 2007 SCC 39. As Julian Ho has provided a synopsis of the case, I will not engage in an extensive summary of the facts. However, I do wish to counter Yu-Sung’s argument […]
When the SCC resumes its hearings in a few weeks, it will handle a case concerning whether the lessor of a car can be vicariously liable as an automobile ‘owner’ to the victim of an accident. On appeal from a unanimous 5-judge decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal (Yeung (Guardian ad item of) […]
It has been over two years since the Supreme Court of Canada issued its controversial ruling in Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), [2005] 1 S.C.R. 791. That case held that Quebec’s ban on private health insurance violated both s. 7 of the Charter and the Quebec Charter. Earlier this month, two Ontario residents filed a […]
Nearly 150 years after Canada adopted "a Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom," legislators in the UK are contemplating doing the reverse. Recent months have witnessed heightened debate over whether the UK should replace its centuries-old "unwritten constitution" with a written document that more closely resembles Canada's. Our Kingdom, a project […]
Eric Baum has recently written two posts on the topic of malicious prosecution (post #1 and post #2); both are critical of the complex tort created in Nelles v. Ontario, [1989] 2 S.C.R. 170. This issue is always an important one, given the generally terrifying idea of false accusations, and it is particularly relevant in […]
The Supreme Court today released their decisions in a number of applications for leave to appeal. While I was looking forward to examining the cases the SCC chose to review, all applications were unfortunately dismissed. For those interested, the news release detailing the SCC's rulings can be found here. The Supreme Court's brief summary of […]
While its broad scope sometimes makes it the last refuge of scoundrels, the breadth of s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is also the major source of its flexibility. Indeed, when contemporary issues not contemplated by the architects of the Constitution arise, it is often through s. 7 that they are […]
Perhaps the summer vacation has dulled any legal reasoning abilities I may have gained in the past two years of law school, but reviewing the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Rhyason, I was taken aback by the disconnect between the type of reasoning engaged in by lawyers and judges and common […]
On September 13, 2007, the SCC rejected an application for leave to appeal by the Alliance for Marriage and the Family (the “Alliance”) in the case of Alliance for Marriage and Family v. A.A. This case looks at whether an intervener has standing to be added as a party in order to qualify to apply […]