unreasonableness

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Uncovering Disguised Correctness Review? Wilson v. British Columbia (Superintendent of Motor Vehicles), 2015 SCC 47

Canadian courts have sometimes described undeferential reasonableness review as “disguised correctness”, cases in which a court says it is applying a reasonableness standard but in fact performs its own analysis of the law and the facts to reach an independent conclusion that it labels ‘reasonable’ or ‘unreasonable’. Here are some examples of judicial uses of […] Read more

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Human Rights Interpretation and Unreasonableness: Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse c. Côté, 2015 QCCA 1544

Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse c. Côté, 2015 QCCA 1544 is an instructive case on the role of the principles of statutory interpretation in unreasonableness analysis — and, moreover, a decision which also caused me to make a further update to this post. Here, the parents of an […] Read more

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The Danger of Taking Things Literally: Corporation d’Urgences-santé c. Syndicat des employées et employés d’Urgences-santé (CSN), 2015 QCCA 315

As I have previously explained, I think it is wrong to measure administrative interpretations of law by reference to the principles of statutory interpretation. Sure, administrative decision-makers should be required to read statutory provisions intelligently and explain their conclusions in terms of statutory language and objectives, but they should not be required to master these […] Read more

From Blogger

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