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The preliminary inquiry has existed as a procedural protection in our criminal justice system for well over a century. Despite its longevity, this procedural option has not been without controversy. Particularly over the last several decades, there has been considerable debate surrounding its continuing value. Recently, a 2012 press release by the federal, provincial, and territorial ministers responsible for justice and public safety suggests that reform (and quite possibly abolition) of the preliminary inquiry is again being considered. The present article provides an empirical context in which to think about preliminary inquiry reform. Using a detailed and comprehensive national data set, developed in 2003 and specifically tailored to examine this criminal procedure, we do not find a clear case for re-opening the debate. The preliminary inquiry appears to have value in reducing the use of expensive court resources, either by altering the course of cases destined for Superior Court or by eliminating weak charges. Its costs in terms of court delay and valuable resources are significantly limited by its infrequent use and few court appearances. At a minimum, this article suggests that a more detailed empirical examination is justified (if not required) before any changes are made to the preliminary inquiry.

Women were also more likely to have talked to somebody about their experience following an incident of unwanted behaviour or assault. * Women were more likely than men to have experienced multiple incidents in the past 12 months and to have experienced unwanted behaviour or violence while on the street versus while in another public place, such as a bar or restaurant. * Beside gender, being younger, having experienced harsh parenting, having been physically or sexually abused by an adult during childhood, and being single, never married, all play a role in experiencing gender-based violence. * One in three (32%) women and one in eight (13%) men experienced unwanted sexual behaviour in public. The victims-and even the perpetrators-may not themselves perceive the motivations for the incident as being rooted in social structures and systems, which can serve to produce and reproduce gender inequality and gendered violence across many dimensions. Because of this, asking about gender-based violence directly in a survey may not lead to accurate findings or conclusions. Previous research indicates that disabled women, Indigenous women, girls and young women, lesbian and bisexual women, and gay and bisexual men are more at risk of experiencing violence (Boyce 2016; Burczycka 2018a; Conroy 2018; Conroy and Cotter 2017; Cotter 2018; Cotter and Beaupré 2014; Ibrahim 2018; Perreault 2015; Rotenberg 2019; Rotenberg 2017; Simpson 2018). By also including questions which measure violence that meets the criminal threshold, such as physical and sexual assault, the SSPPS allows for a comparative analysis of the risk factors across the continuum of gender-based violence, while also providing more recent self-reported statistics on violent victimization.

Since the coming into force of the Youth Protection Act (YPA), the Court of Québec (Youth Division) has only issued a small number of decisions declaring that the rights of a child have been violated. Notwithstanding the foregoing, children’s rights violations continue to occur. Considering that enforcement of children’s rights is critical to the YPA, it being closely tied to the legislation’s objective, the author examines these type of decisions by analyzing jurisprudence from the last decade while bringing up certain elements for thought. Firstly, the article discusses the notion of children’s rights violation as well as the possible recourses in the event thereof. Secondly, it examines recent decisions, focusing on the type of rights that have been violated, defenses that have been brought forward and corrective measures ordered by the tribunal. The author highlights issues, introduces distinctions and attempts to clarify certain obligations of the different parties involved. A large and liberal interpretation regarding the violation of children’s rights is generally proposed, specifically while considering corrective measures.

Partisan self-dealing in the design of election laws is a central challenge for democratic governance. This article develops a new conceptual framework, which I call a structural rights approach, that would enable the Supreme Court of Canada to respond effectively to this problem. A structural rights approach uses the language and logic of individual rights to regulate the structure of democratic institutions. In particular, I argue that courts should design democratic rights to remedy the structural deficiencies of the political system. To this end, I claim that the Supreme Court should interpret the right to vote as encompassing a new democratic right – the right to a fair and legitimate democratic process. In addition, I argue that the right to a fair and legitimate democratic process is best understood as a ‘structural right.’ I define ‘structural rights’ as individual rights that take into account the broader institutional framework within which rights are defined, held, and exercised. This article focuses on two cases studies – electoral redistricting and campaign finance – to show how the Court could use the right to a fair and legitimate democratic process to remedy the problem of partisan self-dealing. In addition, this article canvasses a wide array of structural approaches in the Canadian and American law of democracy literatures, and it locates the structural rights approach within this body of scholarship. The article also considers the structural rights approach with reference to theories of dialogue and deference. The structural rights approach not only provides a new paradigm for the Supreme Court’s oversight of the democratic process; it also offers an alternative way to conceptualize democratic rights.

Prisons present a special context for the interpretation of constitutional rights, where prisoner complaints are pitched against the justifications of prison administrators. In the United States, the history of prisoner rights can be told as a story of the ebb and flow of judicial willingness to defer to the expertise-infused claims of prison administrators. Deference is ostensibly justified by a judicial worry that prison administrators possess specialized knowledge and navigate unique risks, beyond the purview of courts. In recent years, expansive judicial deference in the face of “correctional expertise” has eroded the scope and viability of prisoners’ rights, serving to restore elements of the historical category of “civil death” to the legal conception of the American prisoner. In Canada too, courts have often articulated standards of extreme deference to prison administrators, both before and after the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and notwithstanding that the Charter places a burden on government to justify any infringement of rights. Recently, however, two cases from the Supreme Court of British Columbia mark a break from excessive deference and signify the (late) arrival of a Charter-based prison jurisprudence. In each case, prisoner success depended on expert evidence that challenged the assertions and presumed expertise of institutional defendants. In order to prove a rights infringement and avoid justification under section 1, the evidence must illuminate and specify the effects of penal techniques and policies on both prisoners and third parties. The litigation must interrogate the internal penal world, including presumptions about the workings of prisoner society and conceptions of risk management.

The adoption of a new Code of Civil Procedure in Quebec provides an opportune moment to consider the reasons for, and consequences of, a new direction in adjectival law. Moreover, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the influence of legal traditions on civil procedure, and the role played by such traditions in the legislative evolution and judicial interpretation of procedural law. This paper analyzes the current trends in civil procedure in Quebec, from both legislative and judicial standpoints, and seeks to relate these trends to tradition-based influences. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that Quebec’s procedural law has experienced great swings of the pendulum – originally inheriting continental civilian procedure from the French, gradually evolving towards a very common law/adversarial notion of procedure, and nowreverting back in a civiliste direction.