Diana Ginn is a Full Professor at he Schulich School of Law and William Lahey is President of the University of Kings College, and an Associate Professor, on leave, at the Schulich School of Law The implications of Dunsmuir[1] for judicial deference towards administrative decision making were uncertain for at least two reasons.  The first […] Read more

From the Irish Supreme Court, a delightful case entitled Barlow v Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine [2016] IESC 62. Fishing for mussels was the main issue. Article 10.1 of the Irish Constitution provides that all “natural resources” within Irish jurisdiction “belong to the State” and Article 10.3 allows for “Provision [to] be made by law […] Read more

Quebec’s distinctive character must be reflected in the appointment of judges to the Supreme Court of Canada, and nothing short of unanimous agreement of the provinces can change that principle, the country’s highest court has ruled. It was a stunning rejection of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s latest appointment to that court, Justice Marc Nadon, who […] Read more

Law and Outsiders is a collection of essays examining cutting edge developments in law. Thirteen essays from leading young scholars cover five important areas of legal scholarship: adjudication, European law and politics, migration, vulnerable minorities, and legal values. The recurring theme in the volume is the way in which rules and processes are contributing to […] Read more

Read more

This is the latest post in my series on ‘Responsive Reasons’: for the previous posts, see here and here I will suggest in this section that the common law is further evolving to require reasons to be responsive. That is, reasons for decision must be responsive to the evidence before the decision-maker and submissions made […] Read more

In the opening post in this series I described the traditional position in relation to reasonableness review. Here I describe the significant changes that have occurred over the last couple of decades… For all the tenacity of Wednesbury, it has been gradually displaced over the years, around the common law world. I addressed this point […] Read more

In Société des casinos du Québec inc. v. Association des cadres de la Société des casinos du Québec, 2024 SCC 13 the Supreme Court of Canada dealt with a number of important issues that are significant for the law of judicial review of administrative action and for regulation more broadly. I previewed the case in […] Read more

Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 is closing in on 10,000 mentions in subsequent cases.    After five-or-so years the basic concepts have been very well explained and are widely understood. Nonetheless, every now and then I come across a passage that is particularly evocative.    The following contribution by […] Read more

On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its much-anticipated decision in Yatar v TD Insurance Meloche Monnex, 2024 SCC 8. As expected (by me at any rate), the Court reversed the approach below and (correctly, in my view) described the role of discretion in judicial review proceedings. In reasons written by Rowe J, […] Read more