Law Commons^™

"Son Of Sam" And His Legislative Offspring: The Constitutionality Of Stripping Criminals Of Their Literary Profits, Alan N. Young

Alan N. Young

We have seen in recent years a growing demand to recognize the victims’ rights and needs. In Canadian jurisdictions this has resulted in the introduction of victims-witness assistance programs that are designed to provide support to a victim of crime throughout the court process. Compensation boards have also been set up to provide financial remuneration w those who have suffered injury or loss at the hands of the perpetrator of the crime. In the United States, however, a more aggressive scheme for providing victim redress has been adopted by a number of the state legislatures. These "Son of Sam" laws, …

When Titans Clash - The Limits Of Constitutional Adjudication, Alan N. Young

Alan N. Young

The newspaper headline read: "Court rules against rape victims: Advocates shocked as judges give accused right to demand private counselling records." I Once again, members of the public are left with the impression that the Supreme Court of Canada has awarded the spoils of battle to the accused at the expense of sexual assault complainants. In this comment, I hope to demonstrate two critical points. First, in fairness to the court, it cannot be asserted that the court has afforded sexual assault victims less protection than other victims and/or witnesses who have legitimate expectations of informational privacy which they wish …

Are National Class Actions Constitutional?: A Reply To Hogg And Mckee, Janet Walker

Janet Walker

This article argues that there is no constitutional impediment to the certification of multijurisdictional class actions by provincial superior courts, and no constitutional requirement to confine plaintiff classes to those in which each claim has a real and substantial connection to the forum. Neither the text of the Constitution nor the constitutionally mandated rules of the conflict of laws restrict court jurisdiction in this way. Rather, the principles of order and fairness require Canadian courts to exercise jurisdiction over multi-jurisdictional class actions in a way that maximizes the objectives of class actions, and minimizes the incidence of overlapping classes and …

Captive Audience Meetings And Forced Listening: Lessons For Canada From The American Experience, Sara Slinn

Sara Slinn

Widespread adoption of mandatory representation votes and express protection of employer speech invite employer anti-union campaigns during union organizing, including employer-held captive audience meetings. Therefore, the problem of whether and how to restrict employers’ captive audience communications during union organizing is of renewed relevance in Canada. Captive meetings are a long-standing feature of American labour relations. This article considers how treatment of captive meetings evolved in the U.S., including the notion of employee choice, the “marketplace of ideas” view of expression dominating the American debate, and the central role of the contest between constitutional and statutory rights. It also considers …

Covenant Constitutionalism And The Canada Assistance Plan, Craig M. Scott

Craig M. Scott

No abstract provided.

Is It Time To Stop Tinkering With The Machinery Of Death?, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.

Does The Observer Have An Effect?: An Analysis Of The Use Of The Dialogue Metaphor In Canada's Courts, Richard Haigh, Michael Sobkin

Richard Haigh

In "Charter Dialogue Revisited-Or 'Much Ado About Metaphors,"' it is noted that the original idea behind the dialogue metaphor was simply to describe Canada's constitutional structure. Despite this, the metaphor has been criticized for having normative content and influencing courts and legislatures. In this commentary, the authors analyze all Supreme Court of Canada and lower court uses of the dialogue metaphor and conclude that, with some exceptions, the courts have employed the metaphor properly, i.e., descriptively. Since, however, the metaphor can be misapplied-used other than to describe or explain the relationship between the courts and legislatures in Canada-the authors recommend …

Security And Rights, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Trevor C. W. Farrow

No abstract provided.

Governance And Anarchy In The S.2(B) Jurisprudence: A Comment On Vancouver Sun And Harper V. Canada, Jamie Cameron

Jamie Cameron

The article identifies and explains a double standard in the Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence. The contrast is between the open court jurisprudence, which is a model of good constitutional governance – or principled decision making – and the Court’s s.2(b) methodology, which is “anarchistic” or capricious and undisciplined, in the sense of this article. Two landmark cases decided in 2004 illustrate the double standard: the first is Re Vancouver Sun, [2004] 2 S.C.R. 332, which dealt with the open court principle under Parliament’s anti-terrorism provision for investigative hearings, it represents a high water mark for open court and s.2(b) …

The Van Ert Methodology Of Domestic Reception, Jamie Cameron

Jamie Cameron

A review of Gibran van Ert's book: Using International Law in Canadian Courts. This review approaches the author's methodology of domestic reception from a constitutionalist's perspective.

Patterning Rights Constitutionalism: Thirty Years With The Charter, Benjamin L. Berger, Jamie Cameron

Jamie Cameron

No abstract provided.

Introducción A Una Reedificación Del Concepto De Discapacidad. Breves Apuntes Desde Los Derechos Humanos., Wagner Maslucan Pilco

Wagner Maslucan Pilco

No abstract provided.

In The Shadows Of Sunlight: The Effects Of Transparency On State Political Campaigns, Abby K. Wood, Douglas M. Spencer

Douglas M. Spencer

In recent years, the courts have deregulated many areas of campaign finance while simultaneously upholding campaign finance disclosure requirements. Opponents of disclosure claim that it chills speech and deters political participation. We leverage state contribution data and find that the speech-chilling effects of disclosure are negligible. On average, donors to state-level campaigns are no less likely to contribute in subsequent elections in states that increase the public visibility of campaign contributions, relative to donors in states that do not change their disclosure laws or practices over the same time period – estimates are indistinguishable from zero and confidence intervals are …

La Libertad De Expresión Frente A Los Delitos De Negacionismo Y De Provocación Al Odio Y A La Violencia: Sombras Sin Luces En La Reforma Del Código Penal, Germán M. Teruel Lozano

Germán M. Teruel Lozano

Racist and negationist speeches are at the border of tolerable messages in a democratic society. This paper will explore the limits to freedom of speech in the Spanish law, which is configured as a constitutional order «open» and based on the idea of «person», contrasting with the militant model characteristic of the European Convention on Human Rights. Then, once outlined the content of this freedom, the paper will submit to constitutional review the Holocaust denial crime and hate speech crimes after the reform of the Criminal Code in 2015, from a constitutional-criminal law perspective.

Equality And Singapore’S First Constitutional Challenges To The Criminalization Of Male Homosexual Conduct, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee

Jack Tsen-Ta LEE

In 2013, in Lim Meng Suang and Kenneth Chee Mun-Leon v Attorney-General and Tan Eng Hong v Attorney-General, the High Court of Singapore delivered the first judgments in the jurisdiction considering the constitutionality of section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalizes acts of 'gross indecency' between two men, whether they occur in public or private. The Court ruled that the provision was not inconsistent with the guarantees of equality before the law and equal protection of the law stated in Article 12(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore. The result was upheld in 2014 by the Court …

Law's Religion: Rendering Culture, Benjamin L. Berger

Benjamin L. Berger

This article argues that constitutional law's inability to deal with religion in a satisfying way flows, in part, from its failure to understand religion as, in a robust sense, culture. Once one begins to understand the Canadian constitutional rule of law itself as a cultural form, it becomes apparent that law renders religion in a very particular fashion, and that this rendering is a product of law's symbolic categories and interpretive horizons. This article draws out the elements of Canadian constitutionalism's unique rendering of religion and argues that, although Canadian constitutionalism claims to understand religion as a culture, this is …

Patterning Rights Constitutionalism: Thirty Years With The Charter, Benjamin L. Berger, Jamie Cameron

Benjamin L. Berger

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Restitution And Remedies Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent: Spokeo V. Robins, Doug Rendleman, Douglas Laycock, Mark P. Gergen

Doug Rendleman

Both consumer protection and restitution may be casualties in a collision with the constitutional law of standing. Spokeo collects information from the internet and publishes it; however, Spokeo neither verifies the facts nor confirms which same-named person it refers to. Robins alleges that Spokeo violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act by disseminating false information about him. He seeks class certification and up to $1,000 in statutory minimum damages instead of compensatory damages. Spokeo argues that Robins lacks standing because he suffered no “injury in fact,” no “concrete harm.” Statutory minimum recoveries for defendants’ violations of plaintiffs’ individual rights without proof …

First Amendment; Freedom Of Speech; Broadcasting; Obscenity; Fcc V. Pacifica Foundation, James E. Moliterno

James E. Moliterno

“ ‘I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss L words and the words you can't say . . .the words you couldn't say on the public, ah, airwaves... the ones that will curve your spine [and] grow hair on your hands ....’ While this is the satiric opinion of George Carlin, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a bare majority of the United States Supreme Court have embraced it as their genuine opinion.' They have decided to protect the public from the fate of hearing Carlin's social criticism regarding seven ‘dirty’ words.”

Who’S The ‘We?’ Who’S ‘The People?’, Rodney A. Smolla

Rod Smolla

No abstract provided.

Government Advertising Space: Lessons For The 'Choose Life' Specialty License Plate Controversy, Dara Purvis

Dara Purvis

As license plates emblazoned with the message “Choose Life” have proliferated in twenty-four states, so too have lawsuits challenging such specialty license plates. The holdings of such cases have run the gamut, resulting in a three-way circuit split among the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Circuits. Analysis of the controversy up to this point has not considered an illuminating analogy: advertising space owned and operated by the government. Examining the parallels between advertising space and specialty license plates informs doctrinal analysis of the dispute, demonstrating that state legislatures may not use the current practice of individually establishing specialty license plates through …

The Right To Contract: Use Of Domestic Partnership As A Strategic Alternative To The Right To Marry Same-Sex Partners, Dara Purvis

Dara Purvis

Shortly after the Civil War, a series of cases argued that the Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave black Americans the right to make contracts, including a marriage contract, with whomever they chose. While the cases were almost uniformly unsuccessful at that time, this paper argues that claims based on private contracts replicating some of marriage’s benefits, stripped of the social and religious freight of marriage, are more compelling. State constitutional amendments banning not only marriage, but any legal recognition of a marriage-like relationship, demonstrate that animus underlies the prohibitions and that the amendments violate the Equal Protection Clause even …

All American Citizens Fall Under ‘We The People,’ But Who Is Really Included?, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.

Habeas Corpus Asociativa, Raul Chaname Orbe

Raúl Chanamé Orbe

No abstract provided.

Free Speech Constitutionalism, Alexander Tsesis

Alexander Tsesis

In his Article, Professor Tsesis examines the three dominant normative rationales for free speech in the United States. In turn, he critiques the theories that free speech furthers democratic institutions, that free speech furthers personal autonomy, and, lastly, that free speech advances knowledge by perpetuating a marketplace of ideas. While Professor Tsesis finds much to recommend in each theory, he also finds each lacking. He concludes that the present theories are too narrow to describe the range of concerns encompassed by the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause. As such, Tsesis proposes that First Amendment doctrine should reflect a general theory …

California Supreme Court Unanimously Upholds Inclusionary Zoning As Land Use Regulation And Not An Exaction, Tim Iglesias

Tim Iglesias

Local governments, housing advocates, and people who need affordable housing won a solid victory in the California Supreme Court's unanimous opinion in California Bldg. Indus. Ass'n v. City of San Jose. In a complex 64-page opinion that is clearly drafted and rigorously argued, the court held that inclusionary zoning is a constitutionally permissible strategy to produce affordable housing and to promote economic integration that is subject to rational basis review and not heightened scrutiny.

This article outlines the factual and legal background of the case and discusses the court's reasoning in reaching its decision, including the court's refusal to find …

The Slow Demise Of Race Preference, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

This article traces the origins of affirmative action, its initial success, and the Reagan Administration's efforts to end it, which only recently have come to fruition with Fisher v. University of Texas and Shuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.

Testimony On Oklahoma Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

Sales Tax And Cloud Computing In India, Khagesh Gautam

Khagesh Gautam

This Article, the first of its kind, addresses the question of imposition of sales tax on Cloud computing transactions in India. Several industry estimates show that the Cloud computing market is growing in India and is poised to grow further. However, the question of how to tax these transactions remains to be addressed. This Article engages with this question, albeit only in the context of sales tax. The Indian Constitution lays down, in elaborate detail, the taxes that can exclusively be levied by the Union Parliament and those that can exclusively be levied by the State Legislatures. Sales tax on …

Constitutional Law - Due Process Clause - The Due Process Clause Of The Fifth Amendment Requires Fair Notice Of What Violates Federal Indecency Standards, Jon L. Mills

Jon L. Mills

Casenote regarding Fed. Commc’ns Comm’n v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 132 S. Ct. 2307 (2012).