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Full-Text Articles in Law
Democracy And The Right To Vote: Rethinking Democratic Rights Under The Charter, Yasmin Dawood
Democracy And The Right To Vote: Rethinking Democratic Rights Under The Charter, Yasmin Dawood
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article addresses the Supreme Court of Canada’s theory of democracy and the right to vote. After setting forth the Court’s general approach to democracy, I develop a new conceptual framework for the Court’s approach to democratic rights. First, I argue that the Court has adopted a “bundle of democratic rights” approach to the right to vote. By this I mean that the Court has interpreted the right to vote as consisting of multiple democratic rights, each of which is concerned with a particular facet of democratic governance. Second, I claim that the democratic rights recognized by the Court are …
The Legitimacy Of The Juridical: Constituent Power, Democracy, And The Limits Of Constitutional Reform, Joel Colon-Rios
The Legitimacy Of The Juridical: Constituent Power, Democracy, And The Limits Of Constitutional Reform, Joel Colon-Rios
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article asks and answers the question of what conditions must be met for a constitutional regime to enjoy democratic legitimacy. It argues that the democratic legitimacy of a constitutional regime depends on its susceptibility to democratic re-constitution. In other words, it argues that a constitution must provide an opening, a means of egress for constituent power to manifest from time to time. In developing this argument, the article advances a distinction between ordinary constitutional reform -- understood as subject to certain limits -- and the exercise of constituent power through which a society produces novel juridical forms without being …
Modern Constitutional Democracy And Imperialism, James Tully
Modern Constitutional Democracy And Imperialism, James Tully
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
To what extent is the development of modern constitutional democracy as a state form in the West and its spread around the world implicated in western imperialism? This has been a leading question of legal scholarship over the last thirty years. James Tully draws on this scholarship to present a preliminary answer. Part I sets out seven central features of modern constitutional democracy and its corresponding international institutions of law and government. Part II sets out three major imperial roles that these legal and political institutions have played, and continue to play. And finally, Part III surveys ways in which …
The Constitutive Paradox Of Modern Law: A Comment On Tully, Ruth Buchanan
The Constitutive Paradox Of Modern Law: A Comment On Tully, Ruth Buchanan
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This commentary draws out and elaborates upon some of the more challenging aspects of Professor Tully's sophisticated taxonomy of the relationship between modern constitutional forms and constituent powers. Tully's article reveals the historical particularities of these formations, and at the same time encourages the reader to think beyond them, towards the potentially uncategorizable realm of democratic constitutionalism. Yet, how is it possible to use a taxonomy of modern constitutional democracy as a means of understanding what ties in the uncharted territory beyond? This commentary further explores to what extent this paradoxical modern configuration of constituent powers and constitutional forms may …
Europe's Darker Legacies; Notes On Mirror Reflections, The Constitution As Fetish, And Other Such Linkages Between The Past And The Future Darker Legacies Of Law In Europe; The Shadow Of National Socialism And Fascism Over Europe And Its Legal Traditions Edited, By Christian Joerges And Navraj Singh Ghaleigh (Eds); European Constitutionalism Beyond The State, By J. H. H. Weiler And Marlene Wind (Eds), Peer Zumbansen
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Protecting Rights And Promoting Democracy: Judicial Review Under Section 1 Of The Charter, Martha Jackman
Protecting Rights And Promoting Democracy: Judicial Review Under Section 1 Of The Charter, Martha Jackman
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
The author argues that, under section 1 of the Charter, the courts must weigh carefully the democratic potential of rights guarantees against the democratic quality of government decisions which undermine those rights. The article points to the Egan and Eldridge cases as examples of decisions in which the willingness to uphold rights violations under section 1, in the name of deference to the legislature, actually undermines democratic values. The article examines the RIR-MacDonald decision as a starting point for a section 1 analysis which identifies the characteristics of government decisionmaking that must be present if rights violations are to be …