Law and Society Commons^™

Twenty Years After Krieger V Law Society Of Alberta: Law Society Discipline Of Crown Prosecutors And Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin

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Krieger v. Law Society of Alberta held that provincial and territorial law societies have disciplinary jurisdiction over Crown prosecutors for conduct outside of prosecutorial discretion. The reasoning in Krieger would also apply to government lawyers. The apparent consensus is that law societies rarely exercise that jurisdiction. But in those rare instances, what conduct do Canadian law societies discipline Crown prosecutors and government lawyers for? In this article, I canvass reported disciplinary decisions to demonstrate that, while law societies sometimes discipline Crown prosecutors for violations unique to those lawyers, they often do so for violations applicable to all lawyers — particularly …

“No Skateboarding Allowed”: Municipal Bylaws, Urban Common And Public Property, And The Regulation Of “Undesirable” Or “Disruptive Use", Sara Gwendolyn Ross

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The mechanics of daily local inequality and marginalization can be readily observed within the language of local bylaws that govern urban spaces and places and their use — whether these govern the hours and types of use that can be made of local “public” parks, spaces where loitering is identified as unwelcome, or how and where certain activities can take place. While affinity spaces can be, on the one hand, welcomed and celebrated for the mentorship of youth, extracurricular activity, environmentally friendly transportation, or as a skill-building goal-oriented endeavour, the language of bylaws creates an ecosystem equally predisposed to prohibiting …

A Gender-Based Approach To Historical Child Support: Comment On Colucci V Colucci, Jodi Lazare, Kelsey Warr

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In June 2021 the Supreme Court of Canada (the “Court”) released Colucci v Colucci, its second decision in twelve months dealing with the complex subject of historical (commonly referred to as retroactive) child support. The case worked a significant shift in the law, arguably the first major revision to the law since the Court’s initial consideration of historical child support in DBS, in 2006. This comment suggests that Colucci represents a new understanding of the way that claims for historical child support should be considered in Canadian family law. The comment argues that in changing the applicable framework, …

Dispute Settlement Under The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: A Preliminary Assessment, Olabisi D. Akinkugbe

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The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) will add a new dispute settlement system to the plethora of judicial mechanisms designed to resolve trade disputes in Africa. Against the discontent of Member States and limited impact the existing highly legalized trade dispute settlement mechanisms have had on regional economic integration in Africa, this paper undertakes a preliminary assessment of the AfCFTA Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM). In particular, the paper situates the AfCFTA-DSM in the overall discontent and unsupportive practices of African States with highly legalized dispute settlement systems and similar WTO-Styled DSMs among other shortcomings. Notwithstanding the transplantation of …

View Corridors, Access, And Belonging In The Contested City: Vancouver’S Protected View Cones, The Urban Commons, Protest, And Decisionmaking For Sustainable Urban Development And The Management Of A City’S Public Assets, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

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Majestic views of mountains, sky, and sea are essential components of the visual and experiential identity of Vancouver, Canada. The experience of these vistas supplements other urban realities, such as suffocating living expenses and inequality. This Article explores a recent example of urban contestation over Vancouver’s view corridors as a shared public resource and public asset. As this Article explores, exclusion from access to public assets that provide meaning to daily life — such as the mountain views in question — damage an urban citizen’s sense of identity and belonging in a city through a hierarchical experience of access and …

Proceedings Of Expert Forum On First Nations Social Assistance Reform, September 3, 2019, Naiomi Metallic, Fred Wien

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Social assistance, whether directed to the mainstream population or to First Nations, is not – according to Forum participants -- a sexy topic. Specifically, with respect to First Nation persons living on reserve in Canada, it has been largely a neglected field except for those directly responsible for administering it. Despite its substantive importance, it has not received a lot of attention from the academic research community, for example, nor is it usually near the top of the list of priorities for political leaders and governments.

Why is this the case? Perhaps it has to do with the history of …

Legal Ethics And The Political Activity Of Government Lawyers, Andrew Martin

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The ability to engage in political activity is an essential feature of a democratic society. However, the ability of government lawyers to do so is unclear. While most governments have passed legislation identifying permissible political activity of their employees, it is unclear how the professional obligations of lawyers apply in this context and how these professional obligations interact with this legislation. This article answers these questions. The duty of loyalty to the client requires most government lawyers to refrain from all political activity at the same level of government. The special professional obligations of Crown prosecutors require these lawyers to …

Protecting Urban Spaces Of Intangible Cultural Heritage And Nighttime Community Subcultural Wealth: A Comparison Of International And National Strategies, The Agent Of Change Principle, And Creative Placekeeping, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

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Working towards an equality of differences of a city’s diverse cultures and subcultures requires an examination of the realities of how municipal and provincial legal frameworks governing the city space—such as urban planning policies, zoning decisions, and bylaw enforcement—play out within the microcosm of the everyday neighborhood, where conflicting life patterns must coexist even when they are at odds. Drawing on an urban legal anthropology and urban legal geography methodology assessing the realities of the life of subcultural communities in the city space, this paper’s objective is to explore potential paths towards an equitable regard and valuation of the different …

A Test For Freedom Of Conscience Under The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms: Regulating And Litigating Conscientious Refusals In Health Care, Jocelyn Downie, Francoise Baylis

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Conscientious refusal to provide insured health care services is a significant point of controversy in Canada, especially in reproductive medicine and end-of-life care. Some provincial and territorial legislatures have developed legislation or regulations, and some professional regulatory bodies have developed policies or guidelines, to better reconcile tensions between health care professionals’ conscience and patients’ access to health care services. As other groups attempt to draft standards and as challenges to existing standards head to court, the fact that the meaning of “freedom of conscience” under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not yet settled will become ever more …

The High Cost Of Transferring The Dream, Kim Brooks

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This paper is part of a larger project where I use the facts in tax decisions to reveal something about who we are. It looks through a small window into the lives of the people who find themselves caught between our collective and their individual expenditure aspirations. More specifically, it explores the circumstances in which individuals find that their outstanding tax debts pose a threat to their ability to maintain ownership of their home.

In this paper I use the facts of tax cases for two ends. First, I am interested in disrupting legal knowledge hierarchies. We choose cases to …

From The Octagon To The Courtroom: The Right To Fight, Subaltern Cosmopolitanism, And Public Interest Litigation As Tool For Mixed Martial Arts As A Community/Cultural Normative System, Sara Gwendolyn Ross

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As a new sport, mixed martial arts (“MMA”) has grown wildly in popularity. Yet MMA faces hurdles in legitimization and acceptance through legal, regulatory, and political means. While the MMA community has gone to great lengths to change its image, its internal rules, and regulatory framework—and while most American states and Canadian provinces now legally regulate MMA—certain states, such as New York, continue to ban live professional MMA events.

MMA suffers from a lack of scholarship across many disciplines, including legal scholarship. While the available literature on MMA gradually develops, the minimal legal scholarship related to the matter has concentrated …

Let My People Go: Human Capital Investment And Community Capacity Building Via Meta/Regulation In A Deliberative Democracy - A Modest Contribution For Criminal Law And Restorative Justice, Bruce P. Archibald

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Globalization and the new information economy are putting great stress on western high-wage economies of which Canada is an exemplar. As individuals and together as a society, Canadians are being forced to become more flexible and strategic in adjusting to changing employment opportunities and economic challenges. Meanwhile, governments have shifted from being purveyors of welfare to being supervisors of both markets and decentralized/ privatized public services. Key roles for the government in this new political environment are the sponsorship of mechanisms for autonomous, individual human capital investment as well as for community responses to these emerging economic and social challenges. …

Relational Theory And Health Law And Policy, Jennifer Llewellyn, Jocelyn Downie

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Relational theory starts from an understanding of human selves as relational. This theory informs some significant current developments in the areas of philosophy, ethics and legal theory that re-envision key concepts including autonomy, equality, rights, justice, memory, trust, judgment and identity. In this paper we introduce relational theory and begin to explore some of its implications for health law and policy. In doing so, we hope to show the relevance of each field to the other and to persuade those interested in health law and policy to take up the challenge to pursue the transformative potential of relational theory through …

Religious Discourse In The Public Square, David Blaikie, Diana Ginn

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Full, open, and civilized discourse among citizens is fundamental to the life of a liberal democracy. It seems trite to assert that no discourse should be prohibited or excluded simply because it is grounded in religious faith or employs religious beliefs to justify a particular position. Yet there are those who contend that it is improper for citizens to use religious arguments when debating or deciding issues in the public square, that metaphorical arena where issues of public policy are discussed and contested. In this article we challenge this position, examining the various arguments that are put forward for keeping …

Depriving Law Reform Of Its Potential? New Perspectives On The Public-Private Divide Law Commission Of Canada, Ed. (Vancouver: University Of British Columbia Press, 2003), Richard Devlin Frsc

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New Perspectives on the Public-Private Divide is the second installment in a new series, Legal Dimensions, sponsored by the Canadian Association of Law Teachers, the Canadian Law and Society Association, the Canadian Council of Law Deans and the Law Commission of Canada. The ambitions of this series are large: to "examine various issues of law reform form a multidisciplinary perspective [and]... to advance our knowledge about law and society through the analysis of fundamental aspects of law."

The focus on the public-private divide is an excellent choice for the Legal Dimensions Series for no matter how one conceptualizes the relationship, …

Book Review Of Passion: An Essay On Personality , Richard F. Devlin Frsc

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Passion is a cogently structured, compel Jingly argued and seductively enthralling masterpiece which, in years to come, will undoubtedly stand out as an inspirational source for many who seek social transformation. Unger's style, in this essay at least, is lucid and inviting. Substantively, Passion demonstrates not only the depth of his penetrating intellect but also his command of an array of' disciplines. Unger's polymathy is all the more impressive when we remember that ours is an era in which idiosyncratic specialization is the norm.