Let the speculation begin.

According to an article in The Hill Times, the process to choose the replacements for Supreme Court of Canada Justices Louise Charron and Justice Ian Binnie starts today.

Earlier this year, Charron and Binnie, both from Ontario, announced they were resigning from the Supreme Court.

As The Hill Times article explains:

MPs and human rights lawyers say they expect Prime Minister Stephen Harper will attempt to swing the pendulum of Supreme Court of Canada rulings toward the prevailing views of Conservative Party supporters as he fills the court’s two vacancies in a secretive and high-stakes

. . . [more]

The US grants citizenship to anyone born within its jurisdiction, (as do Canada, Mexico and most South American countries). Recently, however, there’s been a growing debate about whether this practice is supported by the constitution and whether in any event it should be changed. A panel of immigration and constitutional law experts explored these issues this morning at the ABA meeting in Toronto. . . . [more]

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 2010, S.S. 2011, c. 17 (former Bill 160), was proclaimed in force on July 1, 2011. The overall purpose of the Act is to make the human rights complaints process more timely and flexible by streamlining the process for dealing with complaints and allowing more cases to be resolved without litigation.

A major and, according to some, welcome change is the elimination of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal and the transfer of the tribunal’s powers to the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench, which will hear complaints that cannot be resolved by . . . [more]

A short while ago the US House Judiciary Committee amended House bill H.R.1981 “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011” so as to require ISPs in the United States to retain for 18 months a broad range of data about customers and their online activity. (It would seem that the version currently available on LOC’s Thomas does not yet reflect the changes.) To quote from the brief story by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic:

…the firm that sells you Internet access would be required to track all of your Internet activity and save it for 18 months, along

. . . [more]

For the past week, the U.S. National Public Radio has broadcast a series of shocking reports about corruption and abuse in how the US Patent system is set up, and who is abusing it to the detriment of everyone else and innovation.

I highly recommend that you listen to the audio version of these clips, as there are some great quotes included.

The original report is about 20 minutes and can be found here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/26/138576167/when-patents-attack
Follow up reports can be found here:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack
and here:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/02/138934689/the-tuesday-podcast-the-patent-war
These stories are fascinating, hard hitting and make me wonder whether there are any . . . [more]

As Adeyemi Alfred-Adekeye learned, you don’t mess with Cisco Systems Inc. And as Cisco learned, albeit a little late, you don’t mess with the Canadian judiciary.

The tangled story, told in full in the latest judgment [PDF] and glossed in the ars technica article, goes like this in brief: . . . [more]

R v. Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., 2011 SCC 42 is necessary reading for all Canadian lawyers giving advice about any aspect of private law obligations.

This case fits very nicely into our discussion about the need to avoid ambiguity in statements about law. It also shows how often ambiguity in the language actually used is too often associated with the writer(s)’ apparent confusion relating to the meaning of the concepts discussed.

Maybe the Court meant to make some of the assertions that the text of the reasons literally makes. And maybe they “misspoke” themselves.

Time will tell. 

But, in . . . [more]

IQT's closure: A fine example of poor corporate values!

Must, or should, a declaration permitted under an international convention be expressly ‘implemented’ in Canadian law, or is implementation of the convention as a whole sufficient to give legal effect not only to the convention but also to any declaration made by Canada?

It is commonplace that in our legal system, treaties are not self-executing. This means that Canada’s ratification of or accession to an international convention has an effect only in international law, creating an obligation that may be enforceable by remedies provided in the convention itself but not in Canadian courts.

However, the convention will have domestic legal . . . [more]

Do flip-flops, exercise shorts, or spaghetti strap tank tops belong in the workplace? An article (in French) in Le Devoir, “Relâchement vestimentaire – Pour en finir avec la «gougoune» au travail”, attempts to answer exactly that. According to the article, Revenu Québec and The Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec (OIIQ) have insisted that their employees dress appropriately for the workplace, where exercise shorts, tank tops, flip-flops and other overly casual items do not belong. In fact, Revenu Québec sent out a memo to all its employees on the subject of office dress codes as recently . . . [more]

Update on the Claude Robinson plagiarism case: Cinar did plagiarize Claude Robinson's ideas and work.

US Court rejects constitutional challenge to airport body scans.