duty of fairness

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Deference Denied on Questions of Procedural Fairness: Osborn v. The Parole Board, [2013] UKSC 61

Traditionally courts have seen themselves as the guardians of fair procedures. The substance of administrative decisions is for the decision-makers: they are the ones entrusted by the legislature with making decisions, and they have the expertise to do so. Courts have been much less deferential in addressing the processes by which those decisions are reached. […] Read more

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Reasons — Parroting the Statute as a Breach of Procedural Fairness, or Leading to Unreasonableness

The vexed question of the adequacy of reasons got another outing in Wall v. Independent Police Review Director, 2013 ONSC 3312. Here, an individual arrested during an allegedly heavy-handed police operation at the 2010 G20 summit in Toronto made a complaint about his treatment. Having spent 28 hours in custody, he was released without charge.His […] Read more

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Boilerplate Reasons

The President of France, M. Hollande, has recently suggested that where the administration fails to reply to individual decisions silence should be taken as indicating consent: “dans de nombreux domaines, le silence de l’administration vaut décision d’acceptation et non plus décision de rejet”. The reasoning is obvious: citizens deserve responses from the machinery of the state; […] Read more

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Procedural Fairness in Extradition

The Supreme Court of Canada decided two interesting terrorism cases last Friday. R. v. Khawaja, 2012 SCC 69 has been grabbing most of the headlines because the Court upheld (though narrowly defined) anti-terrorism offences enacted shortly after 9/11. There were constitutional issues in the companion case of Sriskandarajah v. United States of America, 2012 SCC […] Read more