2014

From Blogger

Deference, Weight and Procedural Fairness

In both Canada and the United States, considerable jurisprudential effort has been expended on identifying “standards of review” of administrative action. Standards of review refer to the tests applied to determine whether a court should strike down administrative decisions.Most of the time, when administrative lawyers speak of “deference” they have in mind a standard of […] Read more

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Year in Review: the 6-Minute Administrative Lawyer

The Law Society of Upper Canada (to the uninitiated, that’s the Ontario Bar Association) is holding its annual 6-Minute Administrative Lawyer conference next month. I’m doing the ‘Year in Review’ presentation. Here’s the abstract: I will discuss the leading Supreme Court of Canada (“the Court”) decisions of the one-year period bookended by the Six-Minute Administrative […] Read more

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David Miranda and the Constraints of the “Prescribed by Law” Requirement: Miranda v. Home Secretary, [2014] EWHC 255

Laws L.J. delivered the judgment of the Divisional Court yesterday in Miranda v. Home Secretary, [2014] EWHC 255, a judgment explained by Rosalind English and Carl Gardner, and aspects of which have also been discussed by Fiona de Londras and Colin Murray. Miranda, en route to Berlin to share confidential information with a journalist, was […] Read more

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Deference outside a Decision-Maker’s ‘Home’ Statute: Bernard v. Canada (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 13

There is another aspect of Bernard v. Canada (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 13 (discussed here) that is of general interest. When the matter was remitted to it, the Public Service Labour Relations Board had to address whether its order that an employer had to disclose home contact information of non-union employees was compatible with privacy […] Read more

From Blogger

Giving Directions to Administrative Decision-Makers (for Self-Represented Litigants): Bernard v. Canada (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 13

Bernard v. Canada (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 13 represents the end of a long struggle for Ms. Bernard, an employee of the Canadian revenue service who challenged — without counsel — her employer’s ability to send her personal contact details to a union. A decision ordering disclosure was ultimately upheld as reasonable and constitutional but […] Read more