Your search
Results 940 resources
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Principles form part and parcel of our law and legal discourse, so much so that we seldom think of what they are and what they entail. For centuries they have been invoked daily to interpret and argue about the law. But when it comes to matters of constitutional law, principles are further called upon to perform a perennially controversial function: to help police the boundaries of state action. In most common law jurisdictions with a written constitution, this function of principles runs against the generally accepted view that the exercise of judicial review must ultimately be governed and restricted by the terms of the national constitution. This Article argues that the exercise of judicial review based on principles is not confined to that view, once the relationship between principles and the constitution is unpacked and recontextualized.While the English-language literature on principles over the past half-century has been dominated by a select group of Anglo-American scholars, there is a wealth of untapped insights from other parts of the world. One of the major contributions by continental legal theorists even predates the earliest modern Anglo-American writings on the subject by more than a decade. Overall, the law literature in common law and civil law systems reveals a significant degree of commonalities in the basic characters of principles despite the absence of initial evidence of transsystemic borrowings. The wider conceptual inquiry also displays a shift in the focus of the debate, from the protracted search for a clear-cut distinction between rules and principles towards a redefinition of principles’ relationship with “written” law, be it in the form of a civil code or a constitutional instrument. From this inquiry reemerge “unwritten” principles not deriving from codified or legislated law although they have been used to develop the law. Translated into the constitutional domain, these unwritten principles bear no logical connection with the terms of the constitution. Their main functions cover the entire spectrum from serving as interpretive aids to making law by filling gaps. The theoretical framework fits with an ongoing four-century-old narrative of the evolution of constitutional principles and judicial review across most common law-based systems. Constitutional principles are another area where Anglo-American law and legal discourse is less exceptional and more universal than what many assume. Throughout modern Western history, legal battles have been fought and ensuing developments have been made on the grounds of principles. Our law and jurisprudence remain based on them.
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.
-
Taking its cue from the Supreme Court of Canada's constitutionalization of the criminal law's unwritten general part, this article illustrates the interaction between criminal law theory and constitutional law that process implies. It does so by applying a criminal law theory of why and when force in self-defence is justified in order to assess the constitutionality of the self-defence provisions of Canada's Criminal Code. The assessment concludes that, though frequently criticized for excessive complexity, the Code's provisions on self-defence accurately track the nuances demanded by the theory of self-defence best qualified to interpret the provisions. That theory, I argue, puts dignity rather than self-preservation at its centre.
-
This paper explores the implications of the idea of a constitution appropriate to a liberal-democratic state for the law of self-defence. The law governing self-defence, like other laws, must also a test of substantive legality appropriate to the constitution: it must be one that could not reasonably be rejected by a person who is a member of a civil condition created with the purpose of curing the insecurities of the state of nature. While this test of substantive legality is insufficiently powerful to determine all the details of the law of self-defence, it does have several important implications. First, the positive law must recognize a right of self-defence in the core case where the defender responds with necessary and proportionate force to a wrongful threat; second, the positive law must also provide at least an excuse leading to acquittal where the defender is reasonably mistaken about one of the conditions in the core case. Furthermore, the positive law must acquit a person who uses necessary and proportionate force to repel an innocent threat because the civil condition can provide no reason for punishing such a person.
-
With little public discussion, the Canadian law of self-defence has become, in important respects, more permissive than Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. This article provides original historical research into the origins of the Canadian law of self-defence that reveals the evolution of its current conceptual features. It compares these features with the features of the Florida law and warns that in climates of fear, despite Canadian safeguards, Canada’s law is vulnerable to biased or unprincipled application. The Gerald Stanley case in Battleford Saskatchewan serves as a warning. The author argues that Stanley’s successful accident defence in the homicide of Colten Boushie was, in fact, predicated on dangerous notions of defence of property and defence of person that prioritize the protection of property, liberty, and honour over human life.
Explore
Resource type
Topics
- Criminal law (1)
- Equity (1)
- Evidence (1)
- Voyeurism (1)
Publication year
-
Between 1900 and 1999
(213)
-
Between 1910 and 1919
(1)
- 1918 (1)
- Between 1930 and 1939 (5)
- Between 1940 and 1949 (6)
- Between 1950 and 1959 (8)
- Between 1960 and 1969 (14)
- Between 1970 and 1979 (18)
- Between 1980 and 1989 (58)
- Between 1990 and 1999 (103)
-
Between 1910 and 1919
(1)
-
Between 2000 and 2026
(726)
- Between 2000 and 2009 (258)
- Between 2010 and 2019 (304)
- Between 2020 and 2026 (164)
- Unknown (1)