On two occasions in the 1970s, Gerry Adams, allegedly a leading member of the Irish Republican Army at the time and later a prominent Sinn Féin politician, was convicted of attempting to escape from lawful custody. Adams had been imprisoned under an interim custody order (ICO) as part of the British government’s policy of internment, […] Read more
This post originally appeared on the blog of the Centre for Constitutional Studies As part of the Verfassungsblog’s excellent symposium on legal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dean Knight penned an especially insightful contribution on New Zealand, noting how the response alla fine del mondo has taken various forms. In this post, I hope to […] Read more
Re-posted with permission from the Regulatory Review, where it was part of the Comparing Nations’ Responses to COVID-19 series. Cristie Ford is a professor and associate dean at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. After the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the Jewish […] Read more
Here is my collection of posts on the issues left outstanding by Vavilov: Internal appeals The Doré Framework Procedural Fairness Read more
Several years ago, there was lively debate about the standard of review of questions of procedural fairness. For one thing, the Dunsmuir framework was general in nature, presumptively covering the whole field of judicial review of administrative action. In a large number of cases, procedural fairness issues would have fallen into Dunsmuir’s reasonableness categories, as […] Read more
In Doré v. Barreau du Québec, 2012 SCC 12, the Supreme Court of Canada held that alleged infringements of Charter rights by administrative decision-makers should be reviewed on the deferential reasonableness standard. What matters is not whether the decision survives the rigours of the proportionality test set out in R v. Oakes but whether it […] Read more
This week, I am going to post three pieces on matters left unresolved by the Supreme Court of Canada in its seminal administrative law decision, Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65. First, internal appeals, second, administrative decisions allegedly infringing Charter rights and, third, procedural fairness. There are three observations to make about […] Read more
This week I was invited to do a Faculty workshop at Penn State Law on my paper “The Vavilov Framework and the Future of Canadian Administrative Law“. Having written the paper for a Canadian audience who knew most or all of the backstory to Vavilov, I had to give some thought to setting the scene […] Read more
This is the third and final post in the Guest Posts from the West Coast series. In the curious time of COVID-19, Canadian municipalities have leveled the virus’ spread by enforcing distancing rules, fining non-compliant businesses, and maintaining garbage collection, among other mundane tasks. City decision-makers are clearly ‘governments’ – and important ones, too. But, […] Read more
This is the second post in the Guest Posts from the West Coast series. T’ain’t no big thing / To wait for the bell to ring Without a doubt, Vavilov[1] is the ‘sexier’ case in the recent Supreme Court administrative law trilogy. It has everything that Canadian readers of law could hope for: espionage, intrigue, […] Read more