I am happy to be able to post a link to an almost-final version of my chapter for Mark Elliott and Hanna Wilberg’s forthcoming collection, The Scope and Intensity of Substantive Review: Traversing Taggart’s Rainbow, to be published next month by Hart Publishing. Here is the abstract: In the common law tradition, courts are at […] Read more

Ishaq v. Minister of CItizenship and Immigration, 2015 FC 156 has received enormous media attention. The case touches on whether the government can require an applicant for Canadian citizenship to take off her niqab before she takes the oath of allegiance. Moreover, having lost at first instance, the federal government was very loud in announcing […] Read more

Canada’s Human Rights Tribunals have extensive powers to investigate and redress alleged breaches of fundamental rights by public and private parties. These statutory rights overlap but do not mirror the rights protected constitutionally; the human rights codes they are found in are usually described as “quasi-constitutional”. But Canadian courts have typically been cautious in allowing […] Read more

The Federal Court of Appeal decision in Hupacasath First Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 FCA 4 on justiciability of international treaties, the prerogative in respect of foreign affairs, the duty to consult First Nations and the jurisdiction of the federal courts is hugely significant (first-instance decision noted here). At issue was a foreign investment promotion […] Read more

As is well-known, the Supreme Court of Canada stated in Doré v. Barreau du Québec, [2012] 1 SCR 395 that administrative decision-makers must consider Charter values in the exercise of discretionary powers. However, this duty has recently been cast in very limited terms by a strong bench of Ontario’s Divisional Court in Iacovelli v. College […] Read more

My post on Febles v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 SCC 68 has attracted many comments. Some readers are sympathetic to the Supreme Court of Canada. And, indeed, one may wonder what the practical effect is of standard-of-review discussions that sometimes border on the metaphysical. Should the Supreme Court of Canada not focus on resolving […] Read more

It seems to be, post-Forest Ethics Advocacy Association v. National Energy Board, 2014 FCA 245. First, the facts. The Board conditionally approved a major pipeline project to be completed by Enbridge. There are various challenges to the decision pending before the courts. This challenge concerned a number of matters that could fairly be described as […] Read more

Matthew Groves passes on a very interesting decision from the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia: WZARH v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2014] FCAFC 137. The issue was simple. A refugee claimant went for an interview with an Independent Merits Reviewer whose task was to reassess a refusal to classify him […] Read more

I teed up Febles v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration), 2014 SCC 68 a couple of days ago. The decision was released this morning. Here are the extracts in which the Court addressed the standard of review of questions of international law:                 I am sorry to have got […] Read more

* This is an extract from a forthcoming article, “The Policy/Operational Distinction — A View from Administrative Law“. Download a draft here. * The uninitiated might look at the Supreme Court’s recent decision in R. v. Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., 2011 SCC 42, [2011] 3 S.C.R. 45 and suggest that the policy/operational distinction is no longer […] Read more