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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 …
Do Bills Of Rights Matter?: An Examination Of Court Change, Judicial Ideology, And The Support Structure For Rights In Canada, Donald R. Songer, Susan W. Johnson, Jennifer Barnes Bowie
Do Bills Of Rights Matter?: An Examination Of Court Change, Judicial Ideology, And The Support Structure For Rights In Canada, Donald R. Songer, Susan W. Johnson, Jennifer Barnes Bowie
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Competing theories regarding the development of a “rights revolution” in Canada have appeared in the judicial and constitutional literature in recent years. On the one hand, scholars argue that the profound effects often attributed to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are substantially overstated, and conventional analyses have overlooked the more important role of changes in what is called the “support structure” for rights. Others have advanced a competing theory that the Charter created an expansion of civil liberties. We take advantage of an extensive dataset on the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada to provide a more systematic …
Inclusion, Voice, And Process-Based Constitutionalism, Colleen Sheppard
Inclusion, Voice, And Process-Based Constitutionalism, Colleen Sheppard
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article explores a growing emphasis on process issues in the elaboration of constitutional rights and freedoms, focusing on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In a diverse range of contexts, judges are framing constitutional rights and freedoms in terms of the processes and practices they require, rather than in terms of specific constitutionally mandated substantive outcomes. Thus, constitutional rights have been interpreted to require a duty to negotiate, a duty to consult, a duty to accommodate, and entitlements to participate in democratic governance. The growing emphasis on processes and practices is positive to the extent that it resonates …