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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.

In Canada (A.G.) v. Bedford, the Supreme Court of Canada invalidated three prostitution-related provisions of the Criminal Code on grounds of overbreadth and gross disproportionality. The implications of Bedford go well beyond the particular context of sex work and even of criminal law. First, the Court held that the three constitutional norms against overbreadth, arbitrariness, and gross disproportionality are distinct from each other rather than aspects of a single norm against overbreadth. Second, the Court held that a Charter applicant could establish a violation of section 7 by showing that a law is overbroad, arbitrary, or grossly disproportionate in its impact on the life, liberty, or security of only one person and that the effectiveness of the law in achieving its policy objectives was not relevant to these norms. There are some difficulties in understanding this highly individualistic approach to section 7, and those difficulties lead to the third implication. By deferring any consideration of the effectiveness of the law to the question of whether it is a proportional limit on a section 7 right, the Court may be indicating a willingness to do something it has never done before: recognize an infringement of a section 7 right as a justified limit under section 1. The Court’s clarification of the relationship between the norms against overbreadth, arbitrariness, and gross disproportionality is welcome, but its individualistic articulation of those norms is difficult to understand and its suggestion that section 7 violations may now be easier to save under section 1 is troubling.

The Agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States of America for cooperation in the examination of refugee status claims from nationals of third countries (Safe Third Country Agreement) has been subject to criticism since its adoption. Aimed at addressing asylum shopping, the agreement prevents asylum seekers, who have transited through one country, from applying for asylum in the other, subject to certain exceptions. The fact that the agreement applies only to land border ports of entry has led to an increase in irregular entries into Canada, particularly since 2017. The agreement has been the subject of numerous legal challenges. Against this backdrop, the authors analyze the implementation of the agreement in Canadian law and the issues it raises. They argue that the agreement is counterproductive, as if fails to effectively promote the orderly processing of refugee claims from the United States. They also examine the historical background of the numerous legal challenges to the agreement, including the latest Federal Court decision of 2020 which found that the agreement violates section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides that "[e]veryone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice." This book analyzes all aspects of section 7. It outlines the place of section 7 in the constitutional order; how courts decide whether a particular legal principle is so fundamental that it merits recognition under section 7; the conditions under which section 7 will apply to a legal dispute; the legal norms that have been recognized, or rejected, as principles of fundamental justice under section 7; and the very limited circumstances in which an infringement of section 7 will be justified under section 1. The second edition has been extensively revised to take into account several significant changes in the law over the last several years, including the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions in Bedford (sex work) and Carter (medically assisted dying).

This book offers a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the practice and case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Committee against Torture in the assessment of individual complaints concerning the principle of non-refoulement.

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Refugee Law is a concise account of Canadian refugee law, policy, and procedure. It presents refugee law as an independent system, yet one that is open to and influenced by other branches of domestic law, international law, the practices of other jurisdictions, and the general global trends in forced migration. The book examines the historic and contemporary context of refugee law, formal law, and government policy, and the domestic and international principles of refugee protection. The authors seek to provide a solid foundation from which to judge the merits and weaknesses of the existing system, allowing the reader to engage with the ongoing debate, both academic and popular, about the Canadian refugee system.

Recueil des difficultés et des ressources du français juridique. Ouvrage original de jurilinguistique, le JURIDICTIONNAIRE est le fruit d’un travail de dépouill...

Judges are obliged to follow the law, including by imposing mandatory minimum sentences. This can create a moral dilemma. Judges who justify punishment based on its utility in reducing crime may believe that minimum sentences are pointlessly harsh because they do not enhance public protection. Judges who justify punishment based on retributivist theory may feel that mandatory minimum sentences are excessive and therefore unjust. This paper contends that in their effort to impose just and useful sentences, judges tend to seek out and use available legal tools to reduce perceived unfairness. Statutory interpretation, the use of the principle of totality in multiple count prosecutions, and the selective deployment of sentencing tools have all been used to this end. The author contends that striving to constrain the impact of minimum sentences in this way does not corrupt the administration of justice. Instead it is a legitimate, predictable and inevitable outcome.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), as well as comparable laws such as the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act, is precisely the type of law one would expect to play a role in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new projects. Unfortunately, in practice, CEAA is proving to be a failure in reducing or even stabilizing ever-increasing Canadian GHG emissions most notably from the oil and gas sector, particularly the tar sands. This article explores the reasons why CEAA has thus far disappointed advocates hoping to see the mitigation of GHG emissions from new projects. The author suggests that headway in reducing GHG emissions may nonetheless be made under CEAA by convincing courts that significance can only be defined in a manner consistent with the dictates of climate science. In particular, a focus on cumulative effects may help define significance in a more climate-friendly manner. The article also explores law reform options that would make CEAA a more effective tool in addressing climate change.

"In Canada since 1875, courts have been permitted to act as advisors alongside their ordinary, adjudicative role. This book offers the first detailed examination of that role from a legal perspective. When one thinks of courts, it is most often in the context of deciding cases: live disputes involving spirited, adversarial debate between opposing parties. Sometimes, though, a court is granted the power to answer questions in the absence of cases through a reference or advisory opinions. These proceedings raise many questions: about the judicial role, about the relationship between courts and those who seek their "advice", and about the nature of law. Tracking their use in Canada since the country's Confederation and looking to the experience in other legal systems, this book considers how reference opinions draw courts into the complex relationship between law and politics. Focusing on key themes such as the separation of powers, federalism, rights and precedent, this book provides an important and timely study of a fascinating phenomenon"-- Provided by publisher

The Canadian environmental assessment (EA) regime is broken. At a time when the Canadian economy is both increasingly sluggish and unsustainable, we have an obligation -- and perhaps a once-in-a-generation opportunity -- to fundamentally reform EA to enable it to finally live up to its promise of promoting sound and sustainability-based decisions. This task is even more pressing in light of the global commitment under the Paris Climate Change Agreement to rapidly transition to greenhouse gas emissions neutrality. Among the many priorities of meaningful EA reform -- moving beyond project-level assessments, focusing on net positive contributions to sustainability, avoiding costly trade-offs among interdependent economic, ecological, and social objectives -- we focus on the overarching need for polyjural collaboration and polycentric consensus-based decision-making. We argue that any serious effort to move from project-level EAs focused exclusively on adverse biophysical impacts towards a fully integrated, sustainability-based assessment (SA) regime requires a polyjural and polycentric approach capable of facilitating collaborative experimentation among multiple jurisdictional actors, including the federal government, provinces, territories, municipalities, Indigenous peoples, NGOs, academia, project proponents and industry groups, and the Canadian public. After examining the constitutional and political dimensions of the federal and provincial governments' role in EA, we provide two compelling rationales for transitioning to a SA regime. The paper concludes by setting out a series of possible forms of SA for the purpose of informing the federal government's review of its EA regime. In particular, we identify and analyze the competing options for jurisdictional cooperation, collaboration, and consensus-based assessment processes along with the constitutional and practical policy implications of each.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012, which came into force on 6 July 2012, virtually eliminates the core of federal-level environmental assessment in Canada. Under the new law, federal environmental assessments will be few, fragmentary, inconsistent and late. Key decision-making will be discretionary and consequently unpredictable. Much of it will be cloaked in secrecy. The residual potential for effective, efficient and fair assessments will depend heavily on requirements under other federal legislation and on the uneven diversity of provincial, territorial and Aboriginal assessment processes. This paper reviews the key characteristics of the new law in light of 10 basic design principles for environmental assessment processes, and considers the broader international implications of the Canadian retreat from application of these principles.

This commentary assesses the key changes to the federal environmental assessment (EA) process contained in the 2012 Budget Implementation Bill. The resulting Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 (CEAA 2012) is compared to the federal EA process that had been in place since the implementation of the original CEAA in 1995. The article concludes that the key changes brought about by the enactment of CEAA 2012, including the shift in responsibility for EA, the discretionary application of the process, the narrowed scope, new powers of delegation, substitution and equivalency, and the more restricted role of the public all function counter to the improvements to CEAA 1995 recommended in the academic literature. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]