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Articles 1 - 30 of 30
Full-Text Articles in Law
Entangling Liberty And Equality: Critical Disability Studies, Law And Resisting Psychiatric Detention, Tess Sheldon
Entangling Liberty And Equality: Critical Disability Studies, Law And Resisting Psychiatric Detention, Tess Sheldon
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Charter claims of persons with disabilities often sit precariously between sections 7 and 15. Psychiatric detention, including that pursuant to provincial mental health legislation, restricts liberty and security of the person based on the enumerated ground of disability. This project imagines opportunities to challenge state interventions that are linked to prohibited grounds of discrimination. It is inspired by Justice L’Heureux-Dubé’s “interpretive lens of equality” that understands that all Charter rights “strengthen and support each other.” The equality principle should wield significant influence on the interpretation of the protections offered by section 7. Such an approach to sections 7 and …
Toward Justice Epidemiology: Outlining An Approach For Person-Centred Access To Justice, Andrew Pilliar
Toward Justice Epidemiology: Outlining An Approach For Person-Centred Access To Justice, Andrew Pilliar
Dalhousie Law Journal
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought widespread public attention to the fields of epidemiology and public health. These fields share a common commitment to the systematic study of disease across populations, with goals of better understanding, preventing, and treating adverse health events. They are empirical, evidence-based, and person-centred. This paper draws on the histories, norms, and methodologies of public health and epidemiology to construct a novel field of study: justice epidemiology. In recent years, a growing body of unmet legal needs research in Canada and elsewhere has demonstrated that justiciable events are likely ubiquitous, but also that these events tend to …
Open Your Eyes: Teaching And Learning About Anti-Asian Racism And The Law In Canada, Angela Lee
Open Your Eyes: Teaching And Learning About Anti-Asian Racism And The Law In Canada, Angela Lee
Dalhousie Law Journal
Recently, policymakers, institutional actors, and the public have made greater efforts towards being attentive to issues relating to anti-racism and discrimination, as well as equity, diversity, and inclusion more broadly, prompted in part by growing calls for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and the increasing visibility of the Black Lives Matter movement. Yet, there has been a relative dearth of attention paid to the specific ways in which anti-Asian racism manifests and is maintained, particularly in the Canadian context. More than just being a relic of the past, antiAsian racism is an ongoing phenomenon both within and beyond Canada’s borders, as …
Legal Barriers To Age Discrimination In Hiring Complaints, Pnina Alon-Shenker
Legal Barriers To Age Discrimination In Hiring Complaints, Pnina Alon-Shenker
Dalhousie Law Journal
Studies have shown that senior workers endure longer spells of unemployment than their younger counterparts. Age discrimination has been identified as one of the main obstacles to reemployment. This article critically examines how Canadian anti-age discrimination law has responded to the contemporary challenges experienced by senior job seekers. It articulates several difficulties in our existing age discrimination legal framework by analyzing and contrasting social science literature on the present labour market experience of senior job applicants with human rights tribunal and court decisions in hiring complaints. It concludes by sketching a preliminary set of workable proposals for change that derives …
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 …
Protecting Identity By Ignoring It? A Critical Look At The French And Rwandan Paradoxes, Frédéric Mégret
Protecting Identity By Ignoring It? A Critical Look At The French And Rwandan Paradoxes, Frédéric Mégret
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article seeks to critically examine political and legal practices of "racial blindness" by comparing two countries that have most enthusiastically embraced it as an official policy and even ideology: France and Rwanda. By highlighting the differences but also the significant commonalities between the two, it seeks to dynamically emphasize their explicit and implicit construction of race and ethnicity The case for racial blindness is first presented in the terms in which it is largely understood in those countries, and taken seriously as an effort to deal with their unique legacies and political circumstances, notably as part of a desire …
Twu Law: A Reply To Proponents Of Approval, Elaine Craig
Twu Law: A Reply To Proponents Of Approval, Elaine Craig
Dalhousie Law Journal
Trinity Western University has a Community Covenant that only permits sexual minorities to attend at considerable personal cost to their dignity and sense of self-worth. All student and staff applicants to TWU are required to sign this covenant, pledging not to engage in same-sex intimacy. The purpose of this article is to offer a reply to the arguments advanced by proponents of granting law society accreditation to TWUs proposed program. The paper rejects six of the central claims that proponents ofapproval have advanced. First it responds to the claim that TWU does not actually discriminate against the LGBTQ community. Second …
Guilty Displeasures: White Resistance In The Social Justice Classroom, Rakhi Ruparelia
Guilty Displeasures: White Resistance In The Social Justice Classroom, Rakhi Ruparelia
Dalhousie Law Journal
In this article, the author reflects on the challenges of teaching white law students about racism and whiteprivilege asa racializedprofessor To situateher experiences and to better understand the obstacles that professors who teach critically about race and racism confront, she draws from theories of racial identity development and research on student evaluations to contextualize student responses to antiracist pedagogy Grappling with racism in a meaningful way leaves many white students feeling distraught, angry and guilty, among other unpleasant emotions. Professors who initiate these discussions become the natural targets of criticism and blame as students struggle with their discomfort. The hostility …
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 …
No Dichotomies: Reflections On Equality Forafrican Canadians In R. V. R.D.S., April Burey
No Dichotomies: Reflections On Equality Forafrican Canadians In R. V. R.D.S., April Burey
Dalhousie Law Journal
The contrasts, in form and substance, were stark. In form, I was a black woman in a wheelchair, pleading before an all-white, able-bodied and almost all-male Supreme Court of Canada. The usually empty public galleries in the Ottawa courtroom were filled with people of colour, who had come from across the country to witness the hearing of this landmark case. On their entrance, the nine white judges, dressed in their staid, black robes made an almost audible gasp as they were met with this colourfully clad, intently silent band of people of colour.
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 …
Bad Attitude/S On Trial, Carl Stychin
Bad Attitude/S On Trial, Carl Stychin
Dalhousie Law Journal
Bad Attitude/s on Trial presents a "critical analysis of pornography in the context of contemporary Canada,"' with a particular focus on the impact of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in R. v. Butler,2 and its reformulation of the basis of obscenity law. The book is co-written by four Canadian academics: Brenda Cossman, Shannon Bell, Lise Gotell, and Becki L. Ross. Each has contributed a separate section of the book, along with an introduction by Cossman and Bell. The result is a vital, theoretically sophisticated addition to the literature on pornography; a vivid documentation of the impact of obscenity law …
Racial Segregation In Canadian Legal History: Viola Desmond's Challenge, Nova Scotia, 1946, Constance Backhouse
Racial Segregation In Canadian Legal History: Viola Desmond's Challenge, Nova Scotia, 1946, Constance Backhouse
Dalhousie Law Journal
Viola Desmond's courageous efforts to eliminate racial segregation are not as well known to Canadians in general. However, the legal response to Viola Desmond' s challenge provides one of the best examples of the historical role of law in sustaining racism in Canada.
Taxing Times For Lesbians And Gay Men: Equality At What Cost?, Claire Fl Young
Taxing Times For Lesbians And Gay Men: Equality At What Cost?, Claire Fl Young
Dalhousie Law Journal
In this article I shall briefly review some of those struggles and the current state of the law. This forms the backdrop to an issue that I view as being of fundamental importance to lesbians and gay men in their fight for equality and which has not received much attention; that is the tax system. I shall focus on two aspects. First, I shall analyse the use of the tax system as a spending programme and a tool by which to subsidise particular activities. In this context I shall examine the federal government's refusal to recognise lesbian and gay relationships, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Equality And Access To Justice In The Work Of Bertha Wilson, Hester Lessard
Equality And Access To Justice In The Work Of Bertha Wilson, Hester Lessard
Dalhousie Law Journal
Increasingly, Canadians have sought to understand themselves as a community through the language of equality rights. There are several practical and theoretical consequences to this choice of language. One of the practical consequences is that a formal commitment to equality raises public consciousness with regard to material and social disparities and to some extent gives those who are excluded or marginalized at least a rhetorical claim to participation and a share in resources. However, another consequence is that while promoting a rhetoric of respect and individual dignity, equality discourse also places a disproportionate amount of power in the hands of …
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 …
Second Class Rights? Principles And Compromise In The Charter, Denise G. Réaume, Leslie J. M Green
Second Class Rights? Principles And Compromise In The Charter, Denise G. Réaume, Leslie J. M Green
Dalhousie Law Journal
Minority language rights are both historically and politically central to the Canadian constitution. It is also commonly supposed that they are fundamental rights, rooted in principle, and deserving generous interpretation by the courts. For a time, it seemed that the Supreme Court of Canada shared this view. In the Manitoba Language Reference, for example, they said that "The importance of language rights is grounded in the essential role that language plays in human existence, development and dignity." In Mercure v. A.G. of Saskatchewan they reiterated: "It can hardly be gainsaid that language is profoundly anchored in the human condition. Not …
"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) …
Home Rule For Women: Power-Sharing Between Men And Women, Christine Boyle
Home Rule For Women: Power-Sharing Between Men And Women, Christine Boyle
Dalhousie Law Journal
This paper is about the Canadian electoral system and the need for reform of its constituent units. Canadian politics have been remarkable for the comparative lack of interest that has been displayed in this aspect of the system, an aspect that is of great importance in any democratic society. In 1949, a speaker at the annual meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association in Halifax summed up the situation as follows: The basic units of representation . . . the constituencies, are thus conceived in the darkness of a legislative committee, and born to blush unseen on an electoral map …