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Full-Text Articles in Law
Renewing Human Rights Law In Canada, Dominique Clément
Renewing Human Rights Law In Canada, Dominique Clément
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Human rights law was one of the great legal innovations of the twentieth century. And yet human rights agencies and practitioners face a backlash that has resulted in regressive legislative reforms in recent years. These reforms have only succeeded in undermining some of the key pillars of the Canadian model for human rights law. The following article places the current backlash within historical context. The author argues that many recent reforms have replicated the deficiencies of past anti-discrimination laws. Commissions and policy-makers must respond by building on the strengths of the original Canadian model by improving public education, engaging with …
Law Reform For Dummies (3rd Edition), Roderick A. Macdonald
Law Reform For Dummies (3rd Edition), Roderick A. Macdonald
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Legal pluralist law reform engages citizens in dialogue through which they gain richer insight into their normative lives and learn to manage everyday interactions with each other. Noting that first- and second-generation law reform commissions have been critiqued for their narrow vision and goal of modifying individual legal rules, this article shifts the focus to the general public as a key player in the enterprise. This is how law reform responds to public concerns and engages the public’s assumptions about the reform process. The true ambition of law reform is to find opportunities for Canadians to examine their assumptions about …
Thoughtful Practitioners And An Engaged Legal Community: The Impact Of The Teaching Of Procedure On The Legal Profession And On Civil Justice Reform, Janet Walker, Andrew Higgins, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Carla Crifò
Thoughtful Practitioners And An Engaged Legal Community: The Impact Of The Teaching Of Procedure On The Legal Profession And On Civil Justice Reform, Janet Walker, Andrew Higgins, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Carla Crifò
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
What difference does the teaching of civil procedure as an academic subject make to the practice of law, to the professional community in which lawyers practice, and to civil justice reform? In this article, proceduralists from Canada, England and Wales, the United States and Australia analyze the broader implications of teaching civil procedure as an integral feature of an academic legal education rather than as a part of vocational training. They consider ways in which the approach taken to the teaching of procedure in their legal system has influenced the evolution of the profession during a decade of increased public …
Reconceptualizing Vagrancy And Reconstructing The Vagrant: A Socio-Legal Analysis Of Criminal Law Reform In Canada, 1953-1972, Prashan Ranasinhe
Reconceptualizing Vagrancy And Reconstructing The Vagrant: A Socio-Legal Analysis Of Criminal Law Reform In Canada, 1953-1972, Prashan Ranasinhe
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article explores significant reforms to the vagrancy section of the Criminal Code during the mid-to-late twentieth century. By locating the reforms within their unique social, political, and economic climates, I examine how they reconceptualized the offence of vagrancy and concomitantly reconstructed the vagrant as a social problem. The reforms played a seminal role in reducing the number of vagrancy offences, eventually leading to the demise of vagrancy in the criminal law. Yet, while the "vagrant" ceased to exist in the law, the law still continues to preserve vestiges of the vagrant in a highly gendered manner.
Law Commissions And Access To Justice: What Justice Should We Be Talking About?, Patricia Hughes
Law Commissions And Access To Justice: What Justice Should We Be Talking About?, Patricia Hughes
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
In addition to their explicit mandates, law reform commissions have a generic mandate to make recommendations that are designed to increase access to justice. Moreover, contemporary commissions ought to interpret the concept of access to justice broadly. Even though they undertake topics of 'lawyers' law,' or at times limit their focus to the narrower legal system, commissions should also consider how law can be employed to realize economic or social justice. In order to make pragmatic recommendations to increase access to justice, commissions must study the non-legal realm and incorporate into their work the insights of other disciplines and the …
Patchwork Law Reform: Your Idea Is Good In Practice, But It Won't Work In Theory, Roderick A. Macdonald, Hoi Kong
Patchwork Law Reform: Your Idea Is Good In Practice, But It Won't Work In Theory, Roderick A. Macdonald, Hoi Kong
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article elaborates a conception of law reform that is pluralistic, interactional, non-formulaic, attentive to implicit normativity and not exclusively instrumental. It argues that law reform practice is always informed by theory. Where theory is inadequate, law reform practice is likely to result in a sub-optimal patchwork. An appropriate theory of law reform will have the following attributes. First, it will have a respect for human agency. This respect is made manifest in law reform on dimensions of form, substance, purpose, authority, mode, regime, sites, and system. Second, an adequate practice of law reform must attend to structural features of …
Measuring The Effects Of Feminist Legal Research: Looking Critically At "Failure" And "Success", Lisa Philipps
Measuring The Effects Of Feminist Legal Research: Looking Critically At "Failure" And "Success", Lisa Philipps
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Choices And Commitments For Women: Challenging The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Context Of Social Assitance, Mary Jane Mossman
Choices And Commitments For Women: Challenging The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Context Of Social Assitance, Mary Jane Mossman
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Feminism, Law, And Public Policy: Family Feuds And Taxing Times, Susan B. Boyd, Claire F. L. Young
Feminism, Law, And Public Policy: Family Feuds And Taxing Times, Susan B. Boyd, Claire F. L. Young
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This article offers a retrospective analysis of feminist research on tax and family law and developments in these fields since the early 1980s. We identify the sometimes contradictory trends-both in legislation and in case law-that raise questions about the influence that feminist research has had on these areas of law. We then flag some ongoing challenges confronting feminists engaged in law reform efforts. Some common themes will emerge, but notable differences are also evident in the ways that feminist thought has played out in tax and family law.
Feminism, Consequences, Accountability, Sonia Lawrence
Feminism, Consequences, Accountability, Sonia Lawrence
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Retribution Revisited: A Reconsideration Of Feminist Criminal Law Reform Strategies, Dianne L. Martin
Retribution Revisited: A Reconsideration Of Feminist Criminal Law Reform Strategies, Dianne L. Martin
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Were the last 30 years of feminist law reform activity around criminal justice misdirected? Or, if not misdirected, have the efforts been appropriated and manipulated by the New Right? This commentary reflects on this history, and on the failures of the retributive justice project generally, and argues for a reexamination of both. The discussion focuses on the tactics of the New Right and on the retributive goals of some victims' rights organizations as a means of highlighting the unintended consequences of key feminist initiatives around violence against women. Finally, the commentary identifies alternatives to retribution and a need for careful …
Agenda For Canadian Labour Law Reform: A Little Liberal Law, Much More Democratic Socialist Politics, Harry J. Glasbeek
Agenda For Canadian Labour Law Reform: A Little Liberal Law, Much More Democratic Socialist Politics, Harry J. Glasbeek
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Statutory collective bargaining has been the linchpin of Canadian industrial relations since World War I. It yielded benefits to large segments of workers, although its reach and impact were always exaggerated. As the economic entente which underpinned the scheme is unravelling, workers fight desperately to hang onto a system which, in retrospect, looks even better than it did before. But the narrow, male-centred, economic premises of collective bargaining make statutory collective bargaining reform a poor vehicle with which to offset employer attacks on the working classes. An agenda which seeks to link the economic and the political, men and women, …