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
On two occasions in the 1970s, Gerry Adams, allegedly a leading member of the Irish Republican Army at the time and later a prominent Sinn Féin politician, was convicted of attempting to escape from lawful custody. Adams had been imprisoned under an interim custody order (ICO) as part of the British government’s policy of internment, […] 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
Re-posted with permission from the Regulatory Review, where it was part of the Comparing Nations’ Responses to COVID-19 series. Cristie Ford is a professor and associate dean at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the Jewish […] Read more
Here is my collection of posts on the issues left outstanding by Vavilov: Internal appeals The Doré Framework Procedural Fairness Read more
Several years ago, there was lively debate about the standard of review of questions of procedural fairness. For one thing, the Dunsmuir framework was general in nature, presumptively covering the whole field of judicial review of administrative action. In a large number of cases, procedural fairness issues would have fallen into Dunsmuir’s reasonableness categories, as […] Read more
In Doré v. Barreau du Québec, 2012 SCC 12, the Supreme Court of Canada held that alleged infringements of Charter rights by administrative decision-makers should be reviewed on the deferential reasonableness standard. What matters is not whether the decision survives the rigours of the proportionality test set out in R v. Oakes but whether it […] Read more
This week, I am going to post three pieces on matters left unresolved by the Supreme Court of Canada in its seminal administrative law decision, Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65. First, internal appeals, second, administrative decisions allegedly infringing Charter rights and, third, procedural fairness. There are three observations to make about […] Read more