Recently, Mark Mancini and Léonid Sirota at Double Aspect took issue with the arguments we made in our posts on the Vavilov decision which Paul Daly had kindly published at Administrative Law Matters. Paul has since generously offered us space to respond. We aim to keep our rejoinder short and spicy, but we also want […] Read more

I am currently working on a chapter for “Leading Works in Public Law”, a collection edited by Ben Yong and Patrick O’Brien. My chapter is on SA de Smith’s Judicial Review of Administrative Action. Here is a draft of the second section, on “The Context” The Context As noted, Judicial Review of Administrative Action began […] Read more

I have posted “Governmental Power and COVID-19: The Limits of Judicial Review” to SSRN. Here is the abstract: The goal of this Chapter is to explain why those hoping for a high level of judicial engagement with the forms of power being used to combat the cultural, economic, medical, social and other fallout from the […] Read more

One of the questions from the audience at last week’s Centre for Constitutional Studies Webinar on Emergency Powers and Legal Principle (accessible free of charge here) was about the legality of the First Nations Election Cancellation and Postponement Regulations (Prevention of Diseases), SOR/2020-84. Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Regulations provide in respect of […] Read more

Mark Mancini has posted a reply to my response to the paper in which he argues that Doré and Vavilov cannot be or are difficult to reconciled. I suppose this, then, is a surreply (civil procedure mavens should feel free to correct my terminology and hyphenation). I think Mancini shifts the goalposts in his reply […] Read more

This is a post by lawyer Nick Falzon (Young Anderson), prompted by the recent Guest Posts from the West Coast series As a lawyer operating “in the trenches” of post-Vavilov municipal administrative law, I write this respectful response to Professor Alexandra Flynn’s post: “There’s a New Boss in Town: Vavilov and Municipalities”. While I agree […] Read more

This is a draft of part of the chapter I submitted to a forthcoming collection (from the University of Ottawa Press) on the law, policy and ethics of COVID-19. I discussed the different “forms of governmental power” in a previous blog (see here). Comments welcome! Parliamentary sovereignty forms part of the constitutional bedrock of Westminster-style […] Read more

Readers may be interested in some upcoming webinars which are open to the general public. First, on May 20 at 2pm EST, I will be speaking (with Professor David Dyzenhaus) on a Centre for Constitutional Studies panel, “COVID-19: Emergency Powers and Legal Principle“. This webinar is free. On May 25 and May 26, 12pm EST, […] Read more

This post originally appeared on the blog of the Centre for Constitutional Studies As part of the Verfassungsblog’s excellent symposium on legal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dean Knight penned an especially insightful contribution on New Zealand, noting how the response alla fine del mondo has taken various forms. In this post, I hope to […] Read more