Andy Grewal had an interesting post on the Notice and Comment blog last week on a D.C. Circuit decision holding that the canon against extraterritorial interpretation of statutes trumps Chevron deference (though also suggesting that if the agency turned its mind to the canon its reasoned position might survive review). Grewal comments, astutely: Yet recent […] Read more

As of June 1, I will be Associate Dean (Faculty Affairs and Professional Development) and Faculty Secretary, Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal, as part of the team put in place by our incoming Dean, Jean-François GaudreaultDesBiens, to help to execute the reform mandate he has been given by the university authorities. So, the next […] Read more

The challenge to non-appointments to the Canadian Senate survived a motion to strike last week in Alani v. Canada (Prime Minister), 2015 FC 649. Harrington J. rejected — for the moment — government arguments based on justiciability and jurisdiction. On justiciability, Harrington J. concluded: [36]           Without a doubt there is a political […] Read more

There is a fascinating story in the New York Times about judicial decision-making, in particular, whether it is appropriate for judges to seek out the advice of their colleagues: Interviews with more than a dozen judges in Manhattan’s Federal District Court show that almost all have telephoned colleagues when they were puzzled by legal questions […] Read more

This is the fourth and final post excerpting from my paper on stare decisis in Canadian administrative law for the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s 2015 National Roundtable on Administrative Law (Moncton, Friday, May 22*): Consistency in Tribunal Decision-Making. You can read the first, second and third posts here, here and here. * This […] Read more

An old advertisement for Beamish, a tipple manufactured in my native Cork, not far from my alma mater, has the punchline: “Consistent, that’s why it’s different”. One of the advantages of relaxing the rules of stare decisis for administrative tribunals is that it allows decision-makers to change positions in response to shifts in facts, be they economic, […] Read more

This is the second post excerpting from my paper on stare decisis in Canadian administrative law for the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s 2015 National Roundtable on Administrative Law (Moncton, Friday, May 22*): Consistency in Tribunal Decision-Making. You can read the first and second posts here and here. * This event will be rescheduled […] Read more

This is the second post excerpting from my paper on stare decisis in Canadian administrative law for the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice’s 2015 National Roundtable on Administrative Law (Moncton, Friday, May 22): Consistency in Tribunal Decision-Making. You can read the first post here. —– Canadian courts have recently embraced the view that, sometimes, […] Read more

I will be speaking next Friday at the 2015 National Roundtable on Administrative Law organized by the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice. This year’s topic is Consistency in Tribunal Decision-Making and I will be kicking the day off with some thoughts on stare decisis. Here are Sections I and II of my draft […] Read more

My paper on Administrative Law Values is now available in revised (much shorter!) form on SSRN: download it here. Abstract: I focus in this essay on judicial review of administrative action, looking at the subject “from the inside, trying to make sense of lawyers’ reasons and arguments as they are actually presented and defended”.  Rather […] Read more