2016

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A Retrospective on Justice Scalia

My colleague Matt Harrington and I had a lunchtime chat about Justice Scalia’s legacy at the University of Montreal last week. We focused on explaining Justice Scalia’s textualism and originalism, as well as his preference for rules over standards (see also this post). There has been no shortage of critical reflection on Justice Scalia’s life […] Read more

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Retrospective Legislation, Bills of Attainder, the Separation of Powers and the Rule of Law: Ferguson v. The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago [2016] UKPC 2

From the Privy Council comes an interesting review of the general principles governing retrospective legislation: Ferguson v. The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago [2016] UKPC 2. The facts in the several cases under appeal arose out of the introduction of a ten-year statutory limitation period for criminal prosecutions in Trinidad and Tobago. At the […] Read more

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Sunstein and Vermeule on Auer Deference

The potential demise of so-called Auer or Seminole Rock deference has been discussed on the blog before (see here and here). The Supreme Court of the United States is now poised to consider interring the doctrine. However, in “The Unbearable Rightness of Auer“, Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule encourage the Supreme Court to leave well […] Read more

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Using Soft Law to Achieve Policy Objectives

Yesterday, the Canadian government took the next step in its Senate reform process by appointing an advisory board, “an independent and non-partisan body whose mandate is to provide the Prime Minister with merit-based recommendations on Senate nominations”. I have blogged already about the new government’s use of mandate letters, issued to individual ministers, to impose […] Read more