Your search

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

What does it mean when a judge in a court of law uses the phrase “common sense”? Is it a type of evidence or a mode of reasoning? In a world characterized by material and political inequalities, whose common sense should inform the law? Common Sense and Legal Judgment explores this rhetorically powerful phrase, arguing that common sense, when invoked in political and legal discourses without adequate reflection, poses a threat to the quality and legitimacy of legal judgment. Often operating in the service of conservatism, populism, or majoritarianism, common sense can harbour stereotypes, reproduce unjust power relations, and silence marginalized people. Nevertheless, drawing the works of theorists such as Thomas Reid, Antonio Gramsci, and Hannah Arendt into conversation with rulings by the Supreme Court of Canada, Patricia Cochran demonstrates that with careful attention, the democratic, egalitarian, and community-sustaining aspects of common sense can be brought to light. A call for critical self-reflection and the close scrutiny of power relationships and social contexts, this book is a direct response to social justice predicaments and their confounding relationships to law. Creative and interdisciplinary, Common Sense and Legal Judgment reinvigorates feminist and anti-poverty understandings of judgment, knowledge, justice, and accountability.

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

This title provides an ideal first stop for Canadians and non-Canadians seeking a clear, concise, and authoritative account of Canadian constitutional law.

Indigenous Nationals/Canadian Citizens begins with a detailed policy history from first contact to the Sesquicentennial with major emphasis on the evolution of Canadian policy initiatives relating to Indigenous peoples. This is followed by a focus on the

An English dictionary, featuring alphabetically arranged entries that encompass over 240,000 words, phrases, and definitions. In print through its various editions for a century, the Concise Oxford English Dictionaryis one of the most popular choices in Oxford's renowned dictionary line, selected by decades of users for its up-to-date and authoritative coverage of the English language

"Indigenous traditions can be uplifting, positive, and liberating forces when they are connected to living systems of thought and practice. Problems arise when they are treated as timeless models of unchanging truth that require unwavering deference and unquestioning obedience. Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism celebrates the emancipatory potential of Indigenous traditions, considers their value as the basis for good laws and good lives, and critiques the failure of Canadian constitutional traditions to recognize their significance."-- Provided by publisher., "Demonstrating how Canada's constitutional structures marginalize Indigenous peoples' ability to exercise power in the real world, John Borrows uses Ojibwe law, stories, and principles to suggest alternative ways in which Indigenous peoples can work to enhance freedom. Among the stimulating issues he approaches are the democratic potential of civil disobedience, the hazards of applying originalism rather than living tree jurisprudence in the interpretation of Aboriginal and treaty rights, American legislative actions that could also animate Indigenous self-determination in Canada, and the opportunity for Indigenous governmental action to address violence against women."-- Provided by publisher.

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.

The equality rights guarantee contained in section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been described by members of the Supreme Court of Canada as “the most difficult right” and “the Charter’s most conceptually difficult provision.” Therefore, it is not surprising that, as Mr. Justice LeBel stated in Québec v A., “the analytical framework [of s. 15] developed by this Court has been discussed, reformulated and enriched many times over the last two decades”. Mr. Justice Cory stated in Vriend that the equality rights guarantee in the Charter embodies “our fondest dreams, the highest hopes and the finest aspirations of Canadian society.” In this paper, I will look back at the last decade of Supreme Court of Canada case law and review how it has been reformulated. I will then look forward and make some comments about where the Court should go with its equality jurisprudence in the next decade if it is to help us realize the “finest dreams of Canadian society.”

This article draws on debates about the ‘boundary problem’ in democratic theory to consider the normative challenges raised by descent-based Aboriginal membership rules in Canada. The boundary paradox is one of the most intractable puzzles of democratic theory. If a demos is necessarily bounded, so that some people are excluded, what normative principle could justify these exclusions? Liberal theory tends to insist on the primacy of consent as the basis of political society and so fails to explain the reliance of liberal democracies on birthright membership, especially the distribution of citizenship to foreign-born descendants of citizens. Applied to expressly kinship-based polities like Aboriginal communities, liberal approaches prioritize non-discrimination, potentially denying to those communities the capacity to distribute membership by reference to characteristics listed as ‘prohibited grounds’ in human rights law, including, most problematically, race and ethnicity. The article outlines the parallels between Canadian citizenship law, the Indian Act regime, and First Nations’ membership codes, and examines the distinctive role to be played by section 35 of Canada’s Constitution Act 1982 in tempering non-discrimination logics. It concludes that existing justificatory tests (the ‘valid legislative object’ test, and the section 1 ‘reasonable limits’ test) are unlikely to provide a way forward, but that a promising methodology can be discerned in Canadian law and policy, in which the ‘reasonableness’ of Aboriginal descent–based exclusions is assessed relative to the characteristics of a free and democratic Aboriginal community. I suggest that this adaptation of liberal non-discrimination norms is an expression of the continuing importance of kinship and descent boundaries in settler-state constitutionalism. Although many questions remain to be resolved, Canadian human rights laws and methodologies could assist in the primary challenge posed to settler-state political theory: the reconciliation of tribal and liberal forms of political organization.

Aboriginal law disputes are disputes that arise in the spaces between Indigenous and non-Indigenous societies. To date, the Supreme Court of Canada has resolved Aboriginal law disputes under section 35 by relying heavily on the common law to the exclusion of Indigenous legal traditions and principles. In this article, the author argues that applying a bijural interpretation of the principle of respect provides a promising pathway forward in resolving Aboriginal law disputes in a way that supports the grand purpose of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982—reconciliation. The author discusses the principle of respect by considering both non-Indigenous and Indigenous theories to propose a robust conception of respect to guide Aboriginal law jurisprudence. She then suggests three ways to implement the principle of respect in the intercultural relationship: (1) making interdependence and relationships primary; (2) rejecting colonial attitudes and stereotypes of Indigenous peoples; and (3) creating political and legal space for the expression and flourishing of cultural difference.

"In 1982, Canada formally recognized Aboriginal rights within its Constitution. The move reflected a consensus that states should and could use group rights to protect and accommodate subnational groups within their borders. Decades later, however, no one is happy. This state of affairs, Panagos argues, is rooted in a failure to define what aboriginality means, which has led to the promotion and protection of a single vision of aboriginality--that of the justices of the Supreme Court. He concludes that there can be no justice so long as the state continues to safeguard a set of values and interests defined by non-Aboriginal people."-- Provided by publisher.