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

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

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

Trinity Western University v. Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, 2015 NSSC 25 is the first in what is likely to be a long line of cases on TWU’s battle to get a law school up, running and accredited nationwide (see my earlier post here). Campbell J. found for TWU: the Society’s decision to refuse accreditation was […] Read more

Here is an interesting Supreme Court of the United States opinion on a statutory requirement to give reasons: T-Mobile South, LLC v. City of Roswell, 574 U.S. ___ (2015). T-Mobile wanted to build a cell-phone tower in Roswell. The City refused to give permission: the elected members of the Council adopted a motion to deny […] Read more

Readers may remember my post late last year on an Ontario case refusing judicial review of a school’s decision to expel a student, with the knock-on consequence that the student was unable to graduate: Setia v. Appleby College, 2013 ONCA 753. They may also be interested in suggesting how one can reconcile that case with […] Read more

An interesting new paper by Michigan’s Nicholas Bagley: The presumption in favor of judicial review of agency action is a cornerstone of administrative law, accepted by courts and commentators alike as both legally appropriate and obviously desirable. Yet the presumption is puzzling. As with any canon of statutory construction that serves a substantive end, it […] Read more

Doping in sport is a scourge. Eradicating is not easy. The awards for successful doping are very high. Sporting organizations find themselves in a difficult position. Testing everyone and everything is not possible. And often, a plausible (though not necessarily truthful) excuse can be offered in defence of an athlete who has registered a positive […] Read more

Common law courts are generally quite reluctant to review decisions for factual errors. Like all generalisms, this significantly understates the complexity of the area. Nonetheless, a recent Irish decision provides a fine illustration. In Richardson v. Mahon, [2013] IEHC 118, the applicant challenged a factual assertion in a report issued by the respondent tribunal. The […] Read more

Public procurement is governed by a plurality of legal regimes. Statutes, regulations, international law and common law all have a say. Norms are enforceable by judicial review and (somewhat more lucratively) in private actions. Given the pluralistic nature of legal regulation of public procurement, it is unsurprising that norms associated more with public law have […] Read more