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Full-Text Articles in Law
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 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 …
Physicians' Attitudes, Concerns, And Procedural Understanding Of Medical Aid-In-Dying In Vermont, Teresa Ditommaso, Ari P. Kirshenbaum, Brendan Parent
Physicians' Attitudes, Concerns, And Procedural Understanding Of Medical Aid-In-Dying In Vermont, Teresa Ditommaso, Ari P. Kirshenbaum, Brendan Parent
Dalhousie Law Journal
The general purpose of the current study was to collect data on physicians' attitudes towards Act 39, the medical aid-in-dying act that was legislatively approved in 2013. Given the recent nature of the implementation of Act 39, this is the first such study to be conducted in the State of Vermont. The survey was quantitative in nature and addressed three distinct aspects of legalized prescribing of life-ending medication, these being physicians': (I) attitudes regarding ethics and legality of Act 39, (11)understandings of the policies and procedural requirements under the law, including their belief in legal immunity from penalty, and (I1) …
Euthanasia By Organ Donation, Michael Shapiro
Euthanasia By Organ Donation, Michael Shapiro
Dalhousie Law Journal
Euthanasia, the administration of therapy designed to hasten death, particularly in patients with intolerable suffering, has been gaining in acceptance in countries around the world, most recently in Canada. Organ donation from deceased organ donors has always been performed under the strictures of the dead donor rule, the requirement that donors be declared dead prior to any organ recovery. Recent scientific and ethical investigations, however, have questioned whether all donors, whether pronounced based on neurologic (brain death) or circulatory criteria are, in fact, dead. One potential approach to this quandary would be to abandon the fiction imposed by the dead …
Questioning Polst: Practical And Religious Issues, Lloyd Steffen
Questioning Polst: Practical And Religious Issues, Lloyd Steffen
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) is a one-page transferrable medical chart insert designed to facilitate physician-patient communication about a patient's wishes at the end of life. The document as a chart addition is in widespread use today, but various criticisms have been leveled at POLST, the most serious being that POLST creates a slippery slope to illicit active euthanasia. This article examines the criticisms and finds that they fit two categories, the first being practical implementation problems. These problems are correctable given more and better training of medical care staff. The second and more serious ethical charge …
Of Lodestars And Lawyers: Incorporating The Duty Of Loyalty Into The Model Code Of Conduct, Colin Jackson, Richard Devlin, Brent Cotter
Of Lodestars And Lawyers: Incorporating The Duty Of Loyalty Into The Model Code Of Conduct, Colin Jackson, Richard Devlin, Brent Cotter
Dalhousie Law Journal
The "conflicts quartet" ofcases decided by the Supreme Court of Canada can be understood as part of a long-standing tension in Anglo-Canadian jurisprudence between two competing conceptions of a lawyer's professional identity In the most recent of these cases, C.N. Railway v. McKercher, the Supreme Court conclusively preferred the loyalty-centred conception of the practice of law over the entrepreneurial conception. While the Federation of Law Societies of Canada amended its Model Code of Professional Conduct in 2014 in response to the Supreme Court's decision in McKercher, this article argues that those amendments did not go far enough. The authors propose …
The Attorney General As Lawyer (?): Confidentiality Upon Resignation From Cabinet, Andrew Flavelle Martin
The Attorney General As Lawyer (?): Confidentiality Upon Resignation From Cabinet, Andrew Flavelle Martin
Dalhousie Law Journal
The unique role of the attorney general raises several special issues oflegal ethics. This paper addresses one previously unaddressed: whether it is appropriate for the attorney general to publicly announce his or her reasons for resighing from Cabinet. Unlike other ministers, the attorney general is almost always a practicing lawyer and thus bound not only by Cabinet solidarity and Cabinet confidentiality, but also by the lawyer's professional duty of confidentiality and by solicitor-client privilege. The paper begins by canvassing a hierarchy ofreasons for a principled resignation and the rare historical examples where these have occurred. It then turns to the …
The Forms And Limits Of Judicial Inquiry: Judges As Inquiry Commissioners In Canada And Australia, Grant R. Hoole
The Forms And Limits Of Judicial Inquiry: Judges As Inquiry Commissioners In Canada And Australia, Grant R. Hoole
Dalhousie Law Journal
In both Canada and Australia the conduct ofpublic inquiries draws heavily from the expertise of the legal profession, with judges frequently serving as commissioners and inquiry hearings often reproducing the popular imagery of a courtroom. Despite this affinity between public inquiries and the legal profession, however, jurisprudential and academic authorities repeatedly stress that public inquiries are non-adjudicative. Indeed, the received wisdom is that the investigative focus of public inquiries justifies their divergence from the procedural and substantive commitments of adjudication. This paper challenges that assumption. It argues that the service of judges as inquiry commissioners should be premised on their …
A Comment On "No Comment": The Sub Judice Rule And The Accountability Of Public Officials Inthe 21st Century, Lorne Sossin, Valerie Crystal
A Comment On "No Comment": The Sub Judice Rule And The Accountability Of Public Officials Inthe 21st Century, Lorne Sossin, Valerie Crystal
Dalhousie Law Journal
The sub judice rule is a rule of court, a statutory rule, a Parliamentary convention and a practice that has developed in the interaction between media and public officials. At its most basic, the sub judice rule prohibits the publication of statements which may prejudice court proceedings. This study examines the nature, rationale and scope ofthe sub judice rule. The authors provide an account of the current state of the rule, and highlight areas where more clarity would be desirable. The authors propose a more coherent approach to the sub jud ice rule, more clearly rooted in the concern over …
"Uncivil By Too Much Civility"?: Critiquing Five More Years Of Civility Regulation In Canada, Alice Woolley
"Uncivil By Too Much Civility"?: Critiquing Five More Years Of Civility Regulation In Canada, Alice Woolley
Dalhousie Law Journal
The author revisits criticisms of the civility movement made in an earlier paper ("Does Civility Matter?" (2008) 46 Osgoode Hall LJ 175). She argues that Canadian law societies remain concerned with lawyer incivility, despite bringing surprisingly few formal prosecutions against lawyers for incivility. In a few cases the law societies' concern can be justified insofar as lawyer incivility in those cases appears to correlate with serious professional dysfunction. Generally however, the focus on incivility is counter-productive. First, in several cases the focus on lawyer incivility elides the complex and difficult ethical issues raised by the behaviour of the lawyers in …
Revising Canada's Ethical Rules For Judges Returning To Practice, Stephen Ga Pitel, Will Bortolin
Revising Canada's Ethical Rules For Judges Returning To Practice, Stephen Ga Pitel, Will Bortolin
Dalhousie Law Journal
It has recently become more common for retired Canadian judges to return to the practice of law This development raises an array of ethical considerations and potential threats to the integrity of the administration of justice. Although most codes of legal ethics contemplate the possibility of former judges returning to practice, the rules on this particular topic are dated, under-analyzed, and generally inadequate. This article reviews the Canadian ethical rules that specifically relate to former judges and identifies their shortcomings. In doing so, the authors consider, for comparative purposes, Canadian ethical rules directed at former public officers who return to …
The Chemical Castration Of Recidivist Sex Offenders In Canada: A Matter Of Faith, Matthew R. Kutcher
The Chemical Castration Of Recidivist Sex Offenders In Canada: A Matter Of Faith, Matthew R. Kutcher
Dalhousie Law Journal
Chemical castration refers to the use of medication to reduce male testosterone to pre-pubertal levels. Since the mid-20th century reports have detailed this practice in attempts to control pathological sexual behaviour. In 2006, the Canadian Federal Court of Appeal ruled it constitutional for the National Parole Board to require that recidivist sex offenders, if found to be long-term offenders, be chemically castrated under their conditions of release. This paper examines the chemical castration of recidivist sex offenders in Canada through a review of long-term offender hearings reported between 1997 and 2009. The practice is analyzed from ethical, medical and legal …
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 …
Tending The Bar: The "Good Character" Requirement For Law Society Admission, Alice Woolley
Tending The Bar: The "Good Character" Requirement For Law Society Admission, Alice Woolley
Dalhousie Law Journal
Every Canadian law society requires thatapplicants for bar admission be of "good character" The author assesses the administration of this requirement and its statedpurposes ofensuring ethical conductby lawyers, protecting the public and maintaining the profession's reputation. In particular, the premise underlying the use of the good character requirement to fulfill those purposes - that character is the "well-spring of professional conduct in lawyers" - is subjected to critical examination through the theoretical principles of Artistotelian virtue ethics and the empirical evidence of social psychology. The primary thesis of this paper is that as currently justified, administered and applied the good …
On Letters Of Reference As Frames Of Reference, Roderick A. Macdonald, Alexandra Law
On Letters Of Reference As Frames Of Reference, Roderick A. Macdonald, Alexandra Law
Dalhousie Law Journal
Requesting, writing and reading letters of reference are everyday features of academic life. Yet they are neglected as a matter of professorial training and their pedagogical importance is rarely acknowledged. This paper reviews various practical aspects of the reference process, with emphasis on its politics and ethics. It argues that letters of reference frame the lived experience of candidate, writer, reader and community-both for the present and the future.
Law's Ambition And The Reconstruction Of Role Morality In Canada, David M. Tanovich
Law's Ambition And The Reconstruction Of Role Morality In Canada, David M. Tanovich
Dalhousie Law Journal
There is a growing disconnect and alienation between lawyers and the legal profession in Canada. One cause, which is the focus ofthe article, is philosophical in nature. There appears to be a disconnect between the role lawyers want to pursue (i.e., a facilitator of justice) and the role that they perceive the profession demands they play (i.e., a hired gun). The article argues that this perception is a mistaken one. Over the last fifteen years, we have been engaged in a process of role morality reconstruction. Under this reconstructed institutional role, an ethic of client-centred zealous advocacy has slowly begun …
The Form And Substance Of Ethics: Prenatal Diagnosis In The Baird Report, Rachel Ariss
The Form And Substance Of Ethics: Prenatal Diagnosis In The Baird Report, Rachel Ariss
Dalhousie Law Journal
This article analyses the employment of textual tactics in the Final Report of the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. The author argues that the Commission uses these tactics to persuade several different audiences that its stance is correct, and simultaneously to manage dissent over new reproductive technologies. Analysis of textual tactics opens the ethical position of the Commission to substantive questioning. The authorfocuses on the Commission's discussion of prenatal diagnosis for genetic anomalies and concludes that the Commission fails to engage with ethical arguments put forward by persons with disabilities and their advocates. The conclusion also encourages the development …
A Case For Compulsory Legal Ethics Education In Canadian Law Schools, Jocelyn Downie
A Case For Compulsory Legal Ethics Education In Canadian Law Schools, Jocelyn Downie
Dalhousie Law Journal
The author presents principled arguments, consequentialist arguments, arguments by analogy and arguments by authority in support of her conclusion that Canadian law schools should have compulsory legal ethics education. Among other things, she argues that legal ethics education is an imperfect but essential way to meet the obligations that arise from the public trust placed in the legal profession. She also explores a number of benefits that can accrue to students, law schools, the legal profession and society in general when ethics is a compulsory component of legal education.
The First Cut Is (Not) The Deepest: Deconstructing "Female Genital Mutilation" And The Criminalization Of The Other, David Fraser
The First Cut Is (Not) The Deepest: Deconstructing "Female Genital Mutilation" And The Criminalization Of The Other, David Fraser
Dalhousie Law Journal
Deconstruction, as a 'philosophy'andas a strategy for the reading of texts, offers us the ability to engage in a politics and ethics of justice which seeks to recognize our responsibility to the Other. By 'reading' 'female genital mutilation' with this obligation in mind, this article attempts to deal with the prejudices and barriers to justice which present themselves to those of us in the West who seek an engagement with the Other. The article offers a warning and a reading of the 'text' of 'female genital mutilation' informed by our obligation to justice.