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Full-Text Articles in Law
Indigenous Lawyers In Canada: Identity, Professionalization, Law, Sonia Lawrence, Signa Daum Shanks
Indigenous Lawyers In Canada: Identity, Professionalization, Law, Sonia Lawrence, Signa Daum Shanks
Dalhousie Law Journal
For Indigenous communities and individuals in Canada, "Canadian" law has been a mechanism of assimilation, colonial governance and dispossession, a basis for the assertion of rights, and a method of resistance. How do Indigenous lawyers in Canada make sense of these contradictory threads and their roles and responsibilities? This paper urges attention to the lives and experiences of Indigenous lawyers, noting that the number of self-identified Indigenous lawyers has been rapidly growing since the 1990s. At the same time, Indigenous scholars are focusing on the work of revitalizing Indigenous law and legal orders. Under these conditions, Indigenous lawyers occupy a …
Adding Social Condition To The Canadian Human Rights Act, A. Wayne Mackay, Natasha Kim
Adding Social Condition To The Canadian Human Rights Act, A. Wayne Mackay, Natasha Kim
Reports & Public Policy Documents
Almost a decade ago, in June 2000, the Canadian Human Rights Act Review Panel conducted a comprehensive review of the Canadian Human Rights Act [CHRA] and recommended that “social condition” be added as a prohibited ground of discrimination. Since then, no action has been taken to implement this recommendation, despite calls for action from international bodies, political actors, human rights agencies and organizations, and academic commentators to provide protections from discrimination for those suffering from social and economic disadvantage. The authors analyze the experiences at the provincial level with socio-economic grounds of discrimination, jurisprudential developments under the Canadian Charter of …
The Impact Of "Chartervalues" And Campbell V. Jones: Is It Now Easier To Establish Qualified Privilege Against Defamation?, Geoffrey Duckworth
The Impact Of "Chartervalues" And Campbell V. Jones: Is It Now Easier To Establish Qualified Privilege Against Defamation?, Geoffrey Duckworth
Dalhousie Law Journal
The purpose of this case comment is to impel a discourse on whether Campbell v. Jones' has "loosened the test" on qualified privilege. In the aftermath of the Court ofAppeal decision, it might be tempting to suggest that Campbell v. Jones means that the defence of qualified privilege is being re-fabricated in light of the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in order to take an expanded account of "Charter values" such as freedom of expression. This case comment adopts the contrary view, and asserts that what Campbell has really done is clarify exactly which type of extraordinary …
I Do' Kiss And Tell: The Subversive Potential Of Non-Normative Socialsexual Expression From Within Cultural Paradigms, Elaine Craig
I Do' Kiss And Tell: The Subversive Potential Of Non-Normative Socialsexual Expression From Within Cultural Paradigms, Elaine Craig
Dalhousie Law Journal
Using a comparative analysis of the equality movements of sexual minorities in Canada and India the author identifies a symbiosis between the subversive benefits of a deconstructionist approach to equality and the practical achievements to be gained by a rights-based model of social justice. The analysis is conducted through an examination of the role that the expression of same-sex desire plays in the legal and social positions of sexual minorities in Canada and India The author argues that the acquisition of rights can provide sexual minorities with greater access to dominant cultural rituals and that such access provides opportunities to …
Same-Sex Partners And Family Class Immigration: Still Not Equal With Opposite-Sex Partners, Donald G. Caswell
Same-Sex Partners And Family Class Immigration: Still Not Equal With Opposite-Sex Partners, Donald G. Caswell
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which came into force in 2002, and the Regulations under it, expanded family class immigration to include commonlaw partners and conjugal partners in addition to spouses A common-law partner or a conjugal partner may be either an opposite-sex or same-sex partner-as can a spouse, depending upon the currently evolving law with respect to samesex marriage. Under the former Immigration Act, same-sex partners had been admitted pursuant to the discretion to admit immigrants on the basis of compassionate or humanitarian considerations. After examining the admission of same-sex partners under both the former and the current …
Redressing The Imbalances: Rethinking The Judicial Role After R. V R.D.S., Dianne Pothier, Richard Devlin
Redressing The Imbalances: Rethinking The Judicial Role After R. V R.D.S., Dianne Pothier, Richard Devlin
Dianne Pothier Collection
The Decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. R.D.S. dealt with whether a trial judge's comments, about interactions between police officers and "non-white groups", gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias in the circumstances. They strongly criticize the contrary ruling of the dissent as inappropriately drawing a false dichotomy between decisions based on evidence and decisions based on generalizations, and as improperly ignoring social context with an unwarranted confidence in the ideology of colour blindness. While more supportive of the majority's analysis, the authors also find cause for concern, with somewhat different emphasis in the nature …
What's The Difference? Interpretation, Identity And R. V. R.D.S., Allan Hutchinson, Kathleen Strachan
What's The Difference? Interpretation, Identity And R. V. R.D.S., Allan Hutchinson, Kathleen Strachan
Dalhousie Law Journal
Lawyers hanker after authority. Whether it be in enforcing the law or justifying law's institutional power, there is an almost desperate yearning to establish and maintain the legitimacy of law and, therefore, of themselves, in a social world in which the whole notion of authority is challenged and undermined. When it comes to matters of legal interpretation, jurists and judges still crave some method that will ground or trace back an interpretation to a foundational or ultimate source that can confer authority on one particular interpretation over another. However, recent jurisprudential debate has done fatal damage to the notion that …
Lesbians, Gays And The Struggle For Equality Rights: Reversing The Progressive Hypothesis, Mary Eaton
Lesbians, Gays And The Struggle For Equality Rights: Reversing The Progressive Hypothesis, Mary Eaton
Dalhousie Law Journal
The tale often told of Canadian law's advancement in the field of sexual orientation rights is simple but sublime: law has moved, however ploddingly and not without substantial prodding, out of an epoch of almost total repression, into an evermore enlightened era. Castigated by criminal law, pushed to the perimeter by administrative law, and ignored by human rights law, the "homosexual"' had once been law's quintessential "other." In recent years, however, legislatures and courts have increasingly been willing to recognize "homosexuals" as a constituency too long held down by the heavy hand of legal control. Most penal prohibitions against exercises …
A Postmodern Constitutionalism: Equality Rights, Identity Politics, And The Canadian National Imagination, Carl F. Stychin
A Postmodern Constitutionalism: Equality Rights, Identity Politics, And The Canadian National Imagination, Carl F. Stychin
Dalhousie Law Journal
In the 1990s, "identity" has become the centrepiece of theoretical work in a variety of disciplines. We now know that, in the conditions of late modem (or postmodem) society, identity is complex-it is fragmented, intersected, subject to alteration, socially constructed and it exhibits only a partial fixity at any moment. Most important, identities are to be valued, respected, and understood on their own terms. However, we also have relearned (if we ever forgot) that identities can be dangerous and fatal, especially when they coalesce in the form of nationalism. In this article, I will explore the intersection of nationalism and …
Reproductive Technology And Disability: Searching For The "Rights" And Wrongs In Explanation, Judith Mosoff
Reproductive Technology And Disability: Searching For The "Rights" And Wrongs In Explanation, Judith Mosoff
Dalhousie Law Journal
Several years ago I worked as a lawyer representing psychiatric patients on the grounds of a large medieval-looking turn-of-the-century mental hospital in British Columbia. Soon after starting my new job I met Ann, a woman who shortly after her admission as an involuntary patient had informed her treatment team that she was pregnant. She had always wanted to have a baby. When she told her doctor about her pregnancy, he decided that this idea was part of her delusional system and prescribed anti-psychotic drugs to control her pathology. In fact she was pregnant and the medication given during the first …
Discrimination In The Legal Profession, Codes Of Professional Conduct And The Duty Of Non-Discrimination, Christ Tennant
Discrimination In The Legal Profession, Codes Of Professional Conduct And The Duty Of Non-Discrimination, Christ Tennant
Dalhousie Law Journal
This paper is about discrimination in the legal profession, and about the kinds of responses to discrimination that the legal profession should be considering. I begin with a review of the various forms of discrimination which exist in the legal profession. Discrimination in the legal profession ranges from the exclusion of the members of certain groups from parts of the profession, to sexual harassment, to discrimination in our courts, to the exclusion and deprecation of the perspectives and experiences of those who have not traditionally beenin positions of power. Discrimination in the legal profession occurs against women, against aboriginal people, …
Public Housing And Equality Rights - Dartmouth/Halifax County Regional Housing Authority V. Irma Sparks, Stephen G. Coughlan
Public Housing And Equality Rights - Dartmouth/Halifax County Regional Housing Authority V. Irma Sparks, Stephen G. Coughlan
Dalhousie Law Journal
In Dartmouth/HalifaxCounty Regional Housing Authority v. Sparks, courts in Nova Scotia are once again called upon to consider whether tenants in public housing are entitled to the same protection as private tenants. The Supreme Court Appeal Division decided in Bernard v. Dartmouth Housing Authority that shorter notice periods for public housing tenants were not objectionable, under either s. 7 or s. 15 of the Charter. The issue will now return to the Court of Appeal, but in the meantime the County Court has held that Bernard still sets the standard in Nova Scotia.
Aboriginal Peoples And Criminal Justice: A Special Report Of The Law Reform Commission Of Canada, Bruce P. Archibald
Aboriginal Peoples And Criminal Justice: A Special Report Of The Law Reform Commission Of Canada, Bruce P. Archibald
Dalhousie Law Journal
Canada's criminal justice system has been shaken out of its stolid complacency in recent years by demonstrated instances of unfair treatment of religious, ethnic and racial minorities, and in particular our Aboriginal peoples.' Faced with a hue and cry directed at the justice system, the federal Minister of Justice asked the Law Reform Commission of Canada to study "as a matter of special priority, the Criminal Code and related statutes and to examine the extent to which those laws ensure that Aboriginal persons and persons who are members of cultural or religious minorities have equal access to justice and are …
Miles To Go: Some Personal Reflections On The Social Construction Of Disability, Dianne Pothier
Miles To Go: Some Personal Reflections On The Social Construction Of Disability, Dianne Pothier
Dalhousie Law Journal
The "social construction" of disability refers to the way an able bodied conception of disability magnifies its consequences. The social construction of disability assesses and deals with disability from an able bodied perspective. It includes erroneous assumptions about capacity to perform that come from an able bodied frame of reference. It encompasses the failure to make possible or accept different ways of doing things. It reflects a preoccupation with "normalcy" that excludes the disabled person.
The Hidden Gender Of Law, Christine Boyle
The Hidden Gender Of Law, Christine Boyle
Dalhousie Law Journal
Two legal academics who set out to produce a book of materials with such a title could weave many components into it. They could explore feminist methodology, and show how much feminist legal scholarship has in common with feminist scholarship generally. They could illustrate the influence of feminist academic work on actual legal decisions and legislation. They could discuss feminist scholarship and legal education, including the dramatic developments over the last twenty years. Questions about fundamental values - equality, liberty, security, fairness - could be addressed. Materials could be included from the field of law often called Women and the …
"Sentencing And Visible Minorities: Equality And Affirmative Action In The Criminal Justice System", Bruce P. Archibald
"Sentencing And Visible Minorities: Equality And Affirmative Action In The Criminal Justice System", Bruce P. Archibald
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Canadian criminal justice system is facing serious criticism for being racist. Certain Canadian laws and judicial decisions in the past have made the legal system an easy target for such charges. Canadian governments have acknowledged the problems of racism in Canadian society, and provincial and federal human rights legislation exemplify efforts to eradicate racial discrimination. However, racial discrimination persists in Canadian society and the criminal justice system occupies a particularly sensitive place in controversies over the role of the state in these problems. Moreover, the equality provisions in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms have quite properly raised …
Aids And Disability Employment Discrimination In And Beyond The Classroom, Derek J. Jones, N Colleen Sheppard
Aids And Disability Employment Discrimination In And Beyond The Classroom, Derek J. Jones, N Colleen Sheppard
Dalhousie Law Journal
Roughly a year ago, in Chalk v. U.S. District Court Central California, a United States appellate court authorized a teacher to return to his teaching duties, after a California school department had barred him from his classroom upon learning he had Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The case parallels the widely reported events of the Eric Smith story of Autumn 1987. Teacher Smith was initially removed from his Shelburne County, Nova Scotia classroom, and reassigned to non-teaching duties after a medical secretary disclosed that Smith had tested positive for the AIDS virus. While Smith immediately refused the reassignment, he eventually …
Aids In The Workplace: Termination, Discrimination And The Right To Refuse, J Scott Kenney
Aids In The Workplace: Termination, Discrimination And The Right To Refuse, J Scott Kenney
Dalhousie Law Journal
Not since the days of leprosy has there been a disease so feared and so fatal as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome). The lack of knowledge about the disease has merely compounded the problem, so that not only AIDS victims themselves, but also members of perceived "high-risk" groups, face increasing discrimination in all facets of their lives. This paper will focus on only one of these contexts: the workplace. After a review of the current medical knowledge, two principal questions wifl-be examined: (i) What protection does the law give AIDS victims, or members of highrisk groups, against discrimination in employment? (ii) …