2016

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Doctoring Statistics: C.S.B -v- The Minister for Social Protection, [2016] IECA 116

I have posted before on unsuccessful efforts, in Australia and Canada, to invoke statistical evidence in order to demonstrate bias on the part of an administrative decision-maker. In the Australian and Canadian scenarios, the claims of bias were based on evidence showing that immigration officials invariably rejected asylum applications. An interesting recent Irish case, C.S.B […] Read more

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New Job: University of Cambridge

I am really delighted to say that from October 1, I will be a Senior Lecturer in Public Law at the University of Cambridge. I have been hired to teach administrative law; the position opened up because of the impending retirement (from his university position only) of Professor Christopher Forsyth. There are very few places […] Read more

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Procedure, Substance, Deference: Netflix, Inc. v. Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, 2015 FCA 289

Netflix, Inc. v. Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, 2015 FCA 289 is a useful illustration of some of the problems caused by judicial intervention on an intrusive standard on procedural matters. At issue was a tariff certified by the Copyright Board that imposed a monthly minimal fee for free trial periods […] Read more

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Some More Thoughts on the TWU Litigation

I have been following, via Trinity Western University School of Law’s invaluable Twitter feed, proceedings at the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal: I posted on the first-instance decision here. The questions from the bench on Day One did not augur particularly well for the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society, but the judges have also probed the […] Read more

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Categorical Disagreement: Commission scolaire de Laval v. Syndicat de l’enseignement de la région de Laval, 2016 SCC 8

Even in the good old days when judicial review of administrative action was organized around readily identifiable poles such as “judicial” and “administrative” decisions, lawyers engaged in all manner of “verbal gymnastics” to contort their cases into a more favourable category (SA de Smith, Judicial Review of Administrative Action, 1st ed., 1961). In an administrative […] Read more