Revisiting Dunsmuir: Food for Thought
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada did something very unusual, granting leave to appeal in three judicial review cases and explaining:
The Court is of the view that these appeals provide an opportunity to consider the nature and scope of judicial review of administrative action, as addressed in Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 190, 2008 SCC 9, and subsequent cases. To that end, the appellants and respondent are invited to devote a substantial part of their written and oral submissions on the appeal to the question of standard of review, and shall be allowed to file and serve a factum on appeal of at most 45 pages.
This is unusual because the Court does not give explanations for its leave decisions. It is perhaps significant that this direction comes early in Wagner CJ’s stewardship of the Court. Having heard the significant criticisms levelled at the status quo by practitioners, academics and judges, Wagner CJ has marked a break with the past by indicating the Court’s explicit willingness to address the criticisms.
Regular readers know that in the run-up to the tenth anniversary of Dunsmuir, in March of this year, this blog, along with Leonid Sirota’s Double Aspect, ran an online symposium on the past, present and future of Canadian administrative law. The contributions will shortly be published in a special issue — a timely special issue, it turns out — of the Canadian Journal of Administrative Law & Practice.
In this post, I have collected all of the contributions, with hyperlinks to the versions that appeared in the online symposium. These are not the final versions — for that readers will have to wait for the special issue of the CJALP — and on occasion the titles are different, but the posts constitute a useful reading list for those thinking about “the nature and scope of judicial review of administrative action, as addressed in Dunsmuir“. Enjoy.
Paul Daly: Why is Standard of Review so Addictive?
The Hon. Justice David Stratas: A Decade of Dunsmuir: Please No More
The Background to Dunsmuir/Le contexte de Dunsmuir
Clarence Bennett: David Dunsmuir – An Unlikely Administrative Law Celebrity
Dunsmuir and Public Employment/Dunsmuir et la fonction publique
Matthew Lewans: On the Privilege of Public Employment
Nicolas Lambert: Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick – the Saviness of Standards of Review
The Philosophy of Dunsmuir/La philosophie de Dunsmuir
Mark D. Walters: Theorizing Administrative Law – Does Dunsmuir have a Philosophy?
Mary Liston: Deference as respect: Lost in translation?
Andrew Green: The Search for a Simpler Test: Dunsmuir and Categories
Evan Fox-Decent & Alexander Pless: Dunsmuir and Jurisdiction
Léonid Sirota: The Paradox of Simplicity in Canadian Administrative Law
Correctness Review/La norme de la décision correcte
Lauren Wihak: The Withering of Correctness Review
Shaun Fluker: The Return of Correctness in Judicial Review
Reasonableness Review/La norme de la décision raisonnable
David Mullan: The True Legacy of Dunsmuir – Disguised Correctness Review?
The Hon. Joseph T. Robertson, Q.C.: Dunsmuir’s Demise & The Rise of Disguised Correctness Review
Eddie Clark: Dunsmuir and the hows and whys of judicial review
Alice Woolley: Stranger Things – A defence of Dunsmuir
Dunsmuir and Fairness/Dunsmuir et l’équité procédurale
Dunsmuir and the Constitution/Dunsmuir et la constitution
Audrey Macklin: Charter Rights and Charter-Lite
Kate Glover: Dunsmuir & the Constitutional Status of the Administrative State
Indigenous Peoples and Dunsmuir/Les peoples autochtones et Dunsmuir
Janna Promislow: Deference with a Difference: Dunsmuir and Aboriginal Rights
Naiomi Metallic: Deference and Legal Frameworks Not Designed By, For or With Us
Teaching Dunsmuir/Enseigner Dunsmuir
Craig Forcese: Through a glass, darkly – Teaching Canada’s administrative law standard of review
Narelle Bedford: Transcending Jurisdictions – Teaching Dunsmuir in Australia
Judicial Perspectives/Regards de la magistrature
Hon. John M. Evans: Reflections on Dunsmuir of a Recovering Judge
Comparative Perspectives/Regards comparatifs
Janina Boughey: Dunsmuir’s Influence in Australia
Dean R. Knight: Locating Dunsmuir’s Meta-structure Within Anglo-Commonwealth Traditions
Jeff Pojanowski: Dunsmuir: A View from South of the Border
The Effects of Dunsmuir/Les effets de Dunsmuir
Robert Danay: Did Dunsmuir simplify the Standard of Review? An Empirical Assessment
William Lahey and Diana Ginn: How the Lower Courts are “doing Dunsmuir”
Moving on from Dunsmuir/Faut-il passer à autre chose?
Lorne Sossin: Dunsmuir – Plus ça change Redux
Peter Gall: Dunsmuir: Reasonableness and the Rule of Law
The Hon. Justice David Stratas: Looking Past Dunsmuir: Beginning Afresh
Michel Bastarache: Dunsmuir 10 Years Later
Louis LeBel: L’ordre et le rêve – Le contrôle judiciaire après Dunsmuir
This content has been updated on May 11, 2018 at 12:01.