I am very pleased to pass on information about an important symposium taking place in March at the Court of Appeal for Ontario to mark the 50th anniversary of her appointment to that court – see further here.  The Court of Appeal for Ontario is marking the 50th anniversary of the appointment of Bertha Wilson to the […] Read more

This week the Irish government published heads of legislation that would significantly reform judicial review of administrative action. The general scheme of the Civil Reform Bill 2025 can be accessed here. Some, but by no means all, of these suggestions were made in a report on civil justice reform several years ago (see here). Some […] Read more

Towards the end of 2025, the Supreme Court of Canada released another decision on the interpretation of statutes in a regulatory context: Lundin Mining Corp. v. Markowich, 2025 SCC 39. Lundin can be read alongside the earlier 2025 decision in Telus Communications Inc. v. Federation of Canadian Municipalities, 2025 SCC 15, where the majority rejected the argument […] Read more

Here are my speaking notes for the webinar on ‘Agency Independence in Comparative Perspective’ (see here) Agency independence is often spoken of as if it were a single, settled concept. In Canadian administrative law, it is nothing of the sort. Independence is contingent, variable, and to a very large extent the product of legislative choices […] Read more

I spent the academic year 2023-2024 as scholar in residence at the Law Reform Commission of Ireland, on a long-running project addressing reform of the administrative justice system. I am pleased to say that the Commission’s Consultation Paper has now been published: Reform of Non-Court Adjudicative Bodies and Appeals to Courts (LRC CP 70-2025). This is a very meaty […] Read more

Another entry in the catalogue of cases dealing with the interaction between rights of appeal and applications for judicial review is Caledon Residences Inc. v. Ontario Land Tribunal, 2025 ONSC 6546. This raises a question as to whether a right of appeal that is subject to a leave requirement and is contingent on demonstrating a […] Read more

With agency independence very much on the agenda in North America at the moment, readers may be interested in a webinar to be held on December 29 at 3pm, organized by Oren Tamir of the James E. Rogers College of Law (Arizona) and featuring speakers from across the common law world and the European Union: […] Read more

Over the last few months, I have been working with Professor Mark Mancini on a paper on internal trade barriers within Canada and, in particular, on a proposal to create an administrative structure that would help to establish frictionless trade in Canada. We discussed the issue with Peter Copeland of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for the Inside […] Read more

There has been renewed interest in recent years in the theory of administrative law. As I commented a few years ago: It seems to me that it is no accident that contemporary administrative law scholars have focused their academic energies on (relatively) grand theories of the subject. With the general principles of legality, rationality and […] Read more

The rise and rise of habeas corpus continues, with the Supreme Court of Canada further extending the scope of the Great Writ in Dorsey v. Canada (Attorney General), 2025 SCC 38. This judgment deserves careful analysis, but can only be understood in its historical context. One point that should be made at the outset is that decisions […] Read more