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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Impact Of The Honour Of The Crown On The Ethical Obligations Of Government Lawyers: A Duty Of Honourable Dealing, Andrew Flavelle Martin, Candice Telfer
The Impact Of The Honour Of The Crown On The Ethical Obligations Of Government Lawyers: A Duty Of Honourable Dealing, Andrew Flavelle Martin, Candice Telfer
Dalhousie Law Journal
The honour of the Crown is recognized as a Canadian constitutional principle that is essential to reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. As part of the process of reconciliation, this article argues that the honour of the Crown imposes a special ethical obligation on government lawyers in specific circumstances, which we call the duty of honourable dealing. We situate this duty in the divided literature and case law about whether government lawyers have special ethical obligations and in the two dimensions in which the honour of the Crown applies: the Crown as an institution and the Crown as a collection …
Government Lawyering: Duties And Ethical Challenges Of Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin
Government Lawyering: Duties And Ethical Challenges Of Government Lawyers, Andrew Flavelle Martin
Dalhousie Law Journal
Are government lawyers different than lawyers in private practice? If so, why does it matter? While these questions have been addressed piecemeal in the Canadian legal ethics literature, Elizabeth Sanderson's Government Lawyering: Duties and Ethical Challenges of Government Lawyers is the first comprehensive and long-form answer to them.1 As Adam Dodek hints in the foreword 2 and has noted elsewhere,3 the degree to which government lawyers have been overlooked in the Canadian legal literature is incongruent with their sheer numbers as a proportion of the legal profession in Canada. The need for this book is pronounced.
The Story Of Law Reform In Nova Scotia: A Perilous Enterprise, Bill Charles
The Story Of Law Reform In Nova Scotia: A Perilous Enterprise, Bill Charles
Dalhousie Law Journal
The basic or overarching question addressed by the author is why institutional law reform in Nova Scotia has experienced such operational difficulties and challenges, particularly in relation to funding, to the point where it can be described as a perilous enterprise. In the process of searching for an answer to this question, the author examines the origins and development of organized law reform in Nova Scotia over the last 65 years, with special attention paid to the experience of Nova Scotia's two statutory commissions. As a backdrop to the discussion, the author examines the complicated process of law reform itself …
The Future Of Health Law: How Can Law Meet Emerging Health Challenges?, Colleen M. Flood, Lorian Hardcastle
The Future Of Health Law: How Can Law Meet Emerging Health Challenges?, Colleen M. Flood, Lorian Hardcastle
Dalhousie Law Journal
Canadians have often prided themselves on having one of the best health-care systems in the world, but in recent years our system has fallen to the bottom of relevant international comparisons. Incremental attempts to improve the system have not resulted in significant improvements and the reality is that our most pressing challenges can be addressed only through ambitious, systemic reforms. For example, it is well established that Canada's patchwork scheme for providing long-term care will not scale to meet growing needs as a quarter ofthe population enters retirement age over the next two decades.' As yet further examples, the Canadian …
Peter Aucoin, Mark D.Jarvis &Lori Turnbull, Democratizing The Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government, Gregory Tardi
Peter Aucoin, Mark D.Jarvis &Lori Turnbull, Democratizing The Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government, Gregory Tardi
Dalhousie Law Journal
In the aftermath of the Prorogation of Parliament on December 4, 2008, upon the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to then Governor General Michaelle Jean, a particular theme in Canadian literature about governance has flourished. This theme is the influence ofconstitutionalism, democracy and legitimacy on government and politics. In the view of many scholars there is a serious imbalance between the executive branch on one hand and the legislative branch on the other. The sense ofimbalance has generated proposals for changes to the practice of Westminster-style parliamentary democracy in the service of democratic legitimacy.
Section 2(B) Advertising Rights On Government Property: Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority, Anew Can Of Worms And The Liberty Two Step?, Elaine Craig
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Supreme Court's recent decision inVancouver Transportation is problematic for two reasons. First, the majority adopts an analytical framework for determining whether a claim triggers the positive rights Dunmore/Baier analysis, which means that policies restricting expressive rights based on groups rather than content could be less likely to fall within the scope of section 2(b). A better approach would be to characterize section 2(b) cases based on the nature of the claim rather than the nature of the restriction and to apply the positive rights Dunmorel Baier criteria only where the claim is for an audience with the government or …
Lawyering At The Intersection Of Public Law And Legal Ethics: Government Lawyers As Custodians Of The Rule Of Law, Adam M. Dodek
Lawyering At The Intersection Of Public Law And Legal Ethics: Government Lawyers As Custodians Of The Rule Of Law, Adam M. Dodek
Dalhousie Law Journal
Government lawyers are significant actors in the Canadian legal profession, yet they are largely ignored by regulators and by academic scholarship. The dominant view of lawyering fails to adequately capture the unique role of government lawyers. Government lawyers are different from other lawyers by virtue of their role in creating and upholding the rule of law Most accounts of government lawyers separate public law duties of government from ethical duties of lawyers; for example, acknowledging the "public interest" role ofgovernment lawyers but asserting that this has no impact on their ethical duties as lawyers. Instead of this compartmentalized approach, this …
Service To The Nation: A Living Legal Value For Justice Lawyers In Canada, Josh Wilner
Service To The Nation: A Living Legal Value For Justice Lawyers In Canada, Josh Wilner
Dalhousie Law Journal
Lawyers working within a living government require a living ethics, an approach to ethics that accounts for their day-to-day professional lives within the Department of Justice Canada. There are different archetypes of Justice lawyers, and thus a living ethics is also an ethics of place, one which is sensitive to the government institutions within and for which lawyers work and the functions they accomplish. The focus of this paper, which employs a virtue ethics methodology, is primarily civil litigators. Distinguishing between values (enduring beliefs that influence action) and ethics (the application of values in practice), the paper proposes "service to …
Executive Branch Lawyers In A Time Of Terror: The 2008 Fw. Wickwire Memorial Lecture, W Bradley Wendel
Executive Branch Lawyers In A Time Of Terror: The 2008 Fw. Wickwire Memorial Lecture, W Bradley Wendel
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article discusses the ethical responsibilities of the lawyers who advise executive branch officials on the lawfulness ofactions taken in the name of national security. To even talk about this subject assumes that there is some distinction -betweena government that does all within its power to protect its citizens, and one that does all within its lawful power If there are good normative reasons to care about maintaining this distinction, then we have the key to understanding the ethical responsibilities of government lawyers. The Bush administration took the position that the role oflawyers is to get out of the way …
Constitutional Realism About Constitutional Protection: Indigenous Rights Under A Judicialized And A Politicized Constitution, Matthew Sr Palmer
Constitutional Realism About Constitutional Protection: Indigenous Rights Under A Judicialized And A Politicized Constitution, Matthew Sr Palmer
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article assesses the comparative effectiveness of constitutional protection of indigenous rights in Canada and New Zealand using a perspective of "constitutional realism". The two constitutions offer a useful contrast of similar systems distinguished by distinctly contrasting directions over the past twentyfive years. The reality of Canadas constitutional development has seen more power accrue to the judicial branch of government. The reality of New Zealand's constitutional development has seen more power accrue to the political branches ofgovernment. The article considers the reality of the behaviour of these branches of government in each jurisdiction in relation to indigenous rights. It finds …
Imposing Self-Interest: Behavioural Law And Economics, The Ultimatum Game, And Value Possibilities, Michael Ilg
Imposing Self-Interest: Behavioural Law And Economics, The Ultimatum Game, And Value Possibilities, Michael Ilg
Dalhousie Law Journal
With the recent emergence of the behavioural approach to law and economics, there is now a systematic critique of law and economics which remains sympathetic to its overall objectives. Rather than seek to undermine traditional law and economics, the intent of the behavioural approach is generally to augment it, and render its formulations more representative of reality. Drawing upon experimental evidence and well-known examples of anomalies within economic theory, behavioural scholars claim that the law needs to better account for instances of individual irrationality. Having identified the situations when rational maximization does not hold, behavioural scholars are then able to …
R. V. R.D.S.: A Political Science Perspective, Jennifer Smith
R. V. R.D.S.: A Political Science Perspective, Jennifer Smith
Dalhousie Law Journal
Political scientists, including those who study Canadian government and politics, regard the judiciary as a component of the system of governance as a whole. They view it as an institution in relation to other institutions. Thus in The Judiciary in Canada: The Third Branch of Government, Peter Russell examines such issues as the structure of the judiciary in the federal system, the separation of powers and judicial independence, and the appointment, promotion and removal of judges.' As well, political scientists follow the development of the law itself, in areas of peculiar relevance to political life, like electoral law, or of …
The Supreme Court Of Nova Scotia, Responsible Government, And The Quest For Legitimacy, 1850-1920, Philip Girard
The Supreme Court Of Nova Scotia, Responsible Government, And The Quest For Legitimacy, 1850-1920, Philip Girard
Dalhousie Law Journal
Wallace Graham was one of the ablest judges ever to sit on the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. Born of humble Baptist parentage in Antigonish in 1848, the yearNova Scotia's firstReform government took office, he was truly one of the sons of responsible government: that group of non-61ite, non-Halifax, non-Anglican men who left their stamp on the province's political order after mid-century. Appointed to the bench in 1889, he sat for twenty-six years as puisne judge and judge in equity before being named chief justice in 1915. Sadly, he occupied the post for only two years, dying suddenly in office …
Public Power And Private Obligation: An Analysis Of The Government Contract, Shannon Kathleen O'Byrne
Public Power And Private Obligation: An Analysis Of The Government Contract, Shannon Kathleen O'Byrne
Dalhousie Law Journal
This paper analyzes contracts made by the Government in terms of political theory. From this perspective, it explores the assumptions, utility, and accuracy of the private law model which historically has governed the Government's liability in contract. The paper's overarching objective is to question the propriety of applying private law principles to a public entity, particularly within the context of liberal democratic values to which both the Canadian State and society are pledged. In accord with McAuslan, it regards theoretical inquiry as significant. It asserts that if the current model of State liability collides with fundamental Canadian political constructs, or …
Changing Government: The 1971-72 Newfoundland Example, Peter Neary
Changing Government: The 1971-72 Newfoundland Example, Peter Neary
Dalhousie Law Journal
Newfoundland has long provided a rich field of interest for students of constitutional minutiae. The reason for this is not hard to find. In 1842 the Colony's elective Legislative Assembly and its appointive Legislative Council, both established in 1832, were combined in one chamber.' In 1861, only six years after "responsible government" had been achieved in the Colony, the government of John Kent was dismissed from office by Governor Sir Alexander Bannerman. 2 In 1908 a general election produced a tie and a crisis which was resolved only through the action of Governor Sir William MacGregor. 3 In 1919 a …