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Full-Text Articles in Law
Book Review: The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind—And Changed The History Of Free Speech In America, By Thomas Healy, Jamie Cameron
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This is a book review of Healy, Thomas. The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed his Mind—and Changed the History of Free Speech in America. Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Co. 2013.
Formal Versus Functional Method In Comparative Constitutional Law, Francesca Bignami
Formal Versus Functional Method In Comparative Constitutional Law, Francesca Bignami
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
In the field of comparative constitutional law, the dominant approach to concept formation and research design is formal. That is, comparative projects generally identify what counts as the supreme law that can be enforced against all other sources of law based on the “constitutional” label of the positive law (written constitutions and the jurisprudence of constitutional courts) and the law books. This formal method, however, has significant limitations when compared with the functional method used in the field of comparative law more generally speaking. After a brief exposition of the functional method, this article explores the advantages of the functional …
Dead Hands, Living Trees, Historic Compromises: The Senate Reform And Supreme Court Act References Bring The Originalism Debate To Canada, J. Gareth Morley
Dead Hands, Living Trees, Historic Compromises: The Senate Reform And Supreme Court Act References Bring The Originalism Debate To Canada, J. Gareth Morley
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Recent American debates about the relationship between the historic political compromises underlying constitutional provisions and their contemporary judicial application have been largely ignored in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has only twice referred to originalism—and never positively. But in two 2014 decisions about how central institutions of government—the Senate and the Supreme Court of Canada itself—might be changed, the Court relied on the underlying historic political compromises to interpret the Constitution, rejecting arguments from the text or democratic principle. In this article, I consider how Canadian courts have looked to history in the past and in the 2014 decisions, …
The Charter's Influence Around The World, Mark Tushnet
The Charter's Influence Around The World, Mark Tushnet
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Over the past several decades, the influence of the United States Constitution and Supreme Court around the world has waned while that of the Canadian Charter and Supreme Court has increased. This article examines several reasons for these changes, including: the relative ages of the constitutions; the US Supreme Court’s recent conservatism; the Canadian Supreme Court’s role in developing the doctrine of proportionality; the US Supreme Court’s interest in originalism; differing structures of constitutional review and judicial supremacy; and the two Courts’ relative openness to transnational influences.
Judicial Review And American Constitutional Exceptionalism, Miguel Schor
Judicial Review And American Constitutional Exceptionalism, Miguel Schor
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article challenges the conventional view of the pervasiveness of American-style judicial review. It questions why social movements contest constitutional meaning by fighting over judicial appointments in the United States, and why this strategy makes little sense in democracies that constitutionalized rights in the late twentieth century. The United States has been both a model and an anti-model in the global spread of judicial review, as the hope of Marbury (constitutionalized rights) has been tempered by the fear of Lochner [courts run amok). In reconciling Marbury and Lochner, other polities have adopted stronger mechanisms of judicial accountability that make it …
Using The Charter To Stop Racial Profiling: The Development Of An Equality-Based Conception Of Arbitrary Detention, David M. Tanovich
Using The Charter To Stop Racial Profiling: The Development Of An Equality-Based Conception Of Arbitrary Detention, David M. Tanovich
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Do the police use race as a proxy for criminality, particularly, in drug cases? If so, is this a rational discriminatory practice that is based on who the usual offender is or an offensive exercise of racial prejudice? What are the consequences for those communities targeted by the police? This article investigates these questions that have gone unanswered for too long in Canada. After offering a definition of racial profiling, evidence is presented that suggests that the practice is rampant in the United States and is likely practiced by some Canadian police forces, particularly, in cities with large visible minority …
The Death Penalty, Mandatory Prison Sentences, And The Eighth Amendment's Rule Against Cruel And Unusual Punishments, Jamie Cameron
The Death Penalty, Mandatory Prison Sentences, And The Eighth Amendment's Rule Against Cruel And Unusual Punishments, Jamie Cameron
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
The text of section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibit cruel and unusual punishment in language that is similar but not identical. Still, in considering constitutional restrictions on punishment, the deviations of the Supreme Court both focus on the concept of gross disproportionality between the offence committed and the state’s response. Despite the appearance of similarity, this article maintains that differences in the American law of sentencing explain why Canada ought not follow or adopt the United States approach to minimum sentences.
Antidiscrimination And Affirmative Action Policies: Economic Efficiency And The Constitution, Edward M. Iacobucci
Antidiscrimination And Affirmative Action Policies: Economic Efficiency And The Constitution, Edward M. Iacobucci
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article assesses the economic efficiency of race-based antidiscrimination and affirmative action policies with a view to assessing relevant Canadian and American constitutional law. The article reviews economic arguments about why antidiscrimination laws may be efficient in addressing externalities, in hastening the exit of bigoted employers from the market, and in preventing the potentially inefficient use of race as a proxy for information; affirmative action may be efficient in accounting for differential signaling costs across race. The article concludes that economic analysis supports the approach in section 15 of the Charter which generally bans discriminatory government action, but recognizes that …
Cross Cultural Reflections: Teaching The Charter To Americans, Jamie Cameron
Cross Cultural Reflections: Teaching The Charter To Americans, Jamie Cameron
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
In this article, the author discusses a course in Comparative Constitutional Jurisprudence that she taught at Cornell Law School in the winter semester of 1989. She is particularly interested in the way this class of American students responded to the Supreme Court of Canada's interpretation of the Charter. She presents her reflections on differences between Canadian and American constitutional culture through a discussion of the decisions in The Motor Vehicle Reference, R. v. Morgentaler, and The French Language Case.