I have posted previously on the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Agraira v. Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness), 2013 SCC 36. One of the interesting aspects of the decision is the giving of deference to a ministerial interpretation of law, even though the interpretation was only “implied”. How does one square this […] Read more

I have a new paper up at SSRN, “Dismantling Regulatory Structures: Canada’s Long-Gun Registry as Case Study“. Here is the abstract: The story of the creation and destruction of Canada’s long-gun registry tells us much about the legal framework for deregulation, a topic which has received little consideration. The abolition of the registry and the […] Read more

The vexed question of the adequacy of reasons got another outing in Wall v. Independent Police Review Director, 2013 ONSC 3312. Here, an individual arrested during an allegedly heavy-handed police operation at the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto made a complaint about his treatment. Having spent 28 hours in custody, he was released without charge.His […] Read more

When an administrative decision-maker’s interpretation of a statutory provision is longstanding, is it entitled to extra deference from the courts?For my part, I think the usual reasons for deference (legislative choice, expertise, complexity, democratic legitimacy and participation) apply whether or not an interpretation is longstanding.  Novelty is not a reason for less deference and longstandingness […] Read more

My holidays have been delayed, much to my frustration! But on the plus side, I was at my desk for the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision in the gun registry appeal: Canada (Procureur général) c. Québec (Procureur général), 2013 QCCA 1138. I criticized the decision in an oped for the Montreal Gazette yesterday. Here is […] Read more

There is an interesting exchange of footnotes between the majority and dissenting opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Vance v. Ball State University (2013), 570 U.S. _____. At issue was the scope of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Previously, the Court had held that vicarious liability attaches to an […] Read more

In my recently published article, “The Unfortunate Triumph of Form over Substance in Canadian Administrative Law“, I argued that Dunsmuir did not make administrative law any simpler. It is always gratifying to be proved right, so it is with (gloating!) pleasure that I note the decision in Manitoba v. Russell Inns Ltd. et al., 2013 […] Read more

A long-standing issue in administrative law is the extent to which decision-makers can take “judicial notice” of information about the world. Decision-makers are selected typically on the basis of their expertise. But this expertise is liable to be wide-ranging. Sometimes, they will drawn on their background knowledge to support a decision. In such circumstances, however, […] Read more

Not so long ago, I posted on “Deference and Reasonableness“. I have also just posted some thoughts on rationality. It is quite timely, then, that I recently came across the reasons of Robertson J.A. in Small v. New Brunswick Liquor Corporation, 2012 NBCA 53, a case decided last summer. They deserve careful reading by anyone […] Read more

The decision of the UK Supreme Court in Bank Mellat v Her Majesty’s Treasury (No. 2) [2013] UKSC 39 is not exactly ground-breaking as a matter of law, and is certainly the poor relation of Bank Mellat (No. 1), UKSC 38 (see e.g. here), but it is nonetheless a very interesting case on the application […] Read more