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Roncarelli is remembered fifty years later particularly because of Justice Rand’s now iconic statement that “there is no such thing as absolute and untrammelled discretion.” Justice Rand defined “untrammelled discretion” as circumstances where action can be taken on any ground or for any reason that can be suggested to the mind of the decision maker. This statement has been understood to mean that all public regulation exercised through discretionary decision-making by executive officials has legal boundaries, and that the role of the courts is to ensure that decisions do not exceed those boundaries.

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.

Recent DNA exonerations have shed light on the problem that people sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit. Drawing on police practices, laws concerning the admissibility of confession evidence, core principles of psychology, and forensic studies involving multiple methodologies, this White Paper summarizes what is known about police-induced confessions. In this review, we identify suspect characteristics (e.g., adolescence; intellectual disability; mental illness; and certain personality traits), interrogation tactics (e.g., excessive interrogation time; presentations of false evidence; and minimization), and the phenomenology of innocence (e.g., the tendency to waive Miranda rights) that influence confessions as well as their effects on judges and juries. This article concludes with a strong recommendation for the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations and considers other possibilities for the reform of interrogation practices and the protection of vulnerable suspect populations.

There is a consensus that some racial groups are over-represented in their contact with the Canadian justice system, but a lack of agreement about possible reasons for this over-representation. The two dominant explanations for disproportionate minority contact (DMC) with the police are differential involvement in crime and differential treatment by the police. Differential treatment may be due to disproportionate possession by minorities of risk factors for police contact or to discriminatory policing. This paper uses data on self-reported delinquency and police contacts from a representative sample of Canadian youth aged 12 to 17 years from the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth to test the hypotheses that DMC is due to differential involvement or to differential treatment due to disproportionate risk factors. The results indicate that there was disproportionate minority contact with the police, but no support was found for explanations of DMC in terms of either differential involvement or differential treatment due to risk factors. Distinguishing between youth who report violent delinquency and all other youth, DMC was found only for the non-violent youth; this DMC was also not explained by differential treatment due to risk factors. By eliminating other explanations, the results suggest that racially discriminatory policing may be one explanation for DMC in Canada.

The central purpose of this study was to provide a platform for Indigenous young peoples’ opinions regarding the overrepresentation of Indigenous young people in the criminal justice system. Specifically, the study sought (a) their thoughts on broader issues that contribute to the overrepresentation of young people, and (b) strategies on how to reduce the overrepresentation of young people in the future. Results mirrored themes and findings from the research literature. However, the results are themes that are derived from the lived and observed experiences of Indigenous young people and the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, and Métis communities.

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

An article from Les Cahiers de droit, on Érudit.

This paper proposes a fundamental reshaping of the law regarding presumptions of legislative intent in statutory interpretation. Looking to substantive presumptions in particular, it reviews the jurisprudence and concludes that greater consistency would be desirable and that tensions should be resolved between the traditional approach to substantive presumptions and the modern approach to statutory interpretation consistently adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada. Our proposal seeks to provide a uniform methodology for the use of substantive presumptions by incorporating them into the contextual analysis mandated by the modern approach set out in Re Rizzo & Rizzo Shoes Ltd, [1998] 1 SCR 27, 154 DLR (4th) 193. Rejecting the language of “presumptions” and rules of “strict” or “liberal” construction, it argues in favour of interpretation that relies on a transparent discussion of all relevant sources of statutory meaning (including textual and contextual sources, such as the values underlying substantive presumptions) and against a reflexive or mechanical application of substantive presumptions.

An article from McGill Law Journal / Revue de droit de McGill, on Érudit.

Family law is evolving towards non-adversarial dispute resolution processes. As a result, some family lawyers are representing clients who are trying to reach settlements that recognize their interests, instead of just pursuing their legal rights. By responding to the full spectrum of client needs, lawyers are required to behave differently than they do when they are representing a client in a traditional civil litigation file. They consider the emotional and financial consequences of relationship breakdown – things that are not typically within the purview of the family law lawyer. They objectively reality check with their clients, and they approach interest-based negotiations in a client-centric way. These lawyers view their role as that of a non-adversarial advocate, and their clients as whole people with interests that are not just legal. This paper draws on an empirical study involving focus groups with family law lawyers, to argue that the Federation of Law Societies of Canada’sModel Code of Professional Conductneeds to be updated to incorporate non-adversarial advocacy. The lawyers in the study viewed non-adversarial advocacy as being responsive to client needs, and in the interest of clients’ children. This paper draws from the study to establish what constitutes non-adversarial advocacy and then it presents a proposal for revising Rule 5 (Advocacy) of the Model Code.

This article draws upon social interaction theory (the work of Irwin Altman) to develop a theory of the right to privacy, which reflects the way that privacy is experienced. This theory states that the right to privacy is a right to respect for barriers, and that an invasion of privacy occurs when a privacy barrier is penetrated. The first part of the paper establishes the position of the author's theory in the existing scholarship. The second part of the paper expands upon the theory to explain the nature of privacy barriers and the way that the author's theory manages a number of specific privacy issues, including threats to privacy, attempted invasions of privacy, unforeseeable interferences with privacy and waiving the right to privacy. The final part of the paper demonstrates the impact that this approach to privacy could have upon judicial reasoning, in particular Article 8 European Convention on Human Rights.