A lawyer’s ability to complain to a judge about the judge’s behaviour in court is about to be reviewed by the Supreme Court of Canada. The SCC will hear the appeal in Doré v Bernard. Gilles Doré was penalized by the Barreau du Québec for his letter to the judge of a case in which Mr. Doré had been counsel. Though the letter was marked private, the judge sent it to his Chief Justice, who sent it to the Barreau. More details are in this story in the Montreal Gazette. The text of the letter leads off the . . . [more]

The Canadian Centre for Elder Law, a division of the BC Law Institute at UBC, has released A Practical Guide to Elder Abuse and Neglect Law in Canada:

This comprehensive resource includes snapshots of the law in each of the thirteen provinces and territories, a comparative table that allows for quick reference, a set of guiding principles for working with vulnerable adults, and sections that discuss mandatory reporting of abuse and neglect, rules around confidentiality of personal and health information, and the relationship between mental capacity and elder abuse.  The guide also contains a lengthy list of resource agencies.

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At a meeting of lawyers yesterday, I heard one senior member refer to the decision of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in R v. Chaytor [2010] EWCA Crim 1910 as one of the best judgments he had read in a great many years. Intrigued, I took a look, and now I want to pass on to you the suggestion that you, too, read the judgment.

As the title of this post says, the case concerns a defence of parliamentary privilege. Criminal charges of fraud were laid against three members of the U.K. Parliament and one member of . . . [more]

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal recently released its decision as to whether marriage commissioners—as civil servants—can opt out of performing same-sex marriages. Why is this an issue? In 2004, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered a landmark decision confirming the legal validity of same-sex marriage. Parliament then enacted legislation redefining marriage to include such unions. This led some marriage commissioners in Saskatchewan to refuse to solemnize same-sex marriages on the basis that they could not provide services in this regard without acting in violation of their personal religious beliefs.

The Saskatchewan government found this unacceptable. Since many religions do not . . . [more]

I just listened to a teleseminar by the Canadian IT-Law Association on the Anti-spam act, primarily discussing the CRTC’s role. Here are a few points that were raised.

The act is expected to come into force in September. Regulations may be published for comment as early as late February or March.

The regulations will be crucial. It will be important to look at them during draft stage and comment where necessary.

There will be an overlap in jurisdiction between the CRTC, Privacy Commissioner, and Competition Bureau, though CRTC is primary.

The CRTC role as enforcer is fairly new. The . . . [more]

What are the pressing topics on which international law should be developed regarding electronic commerce? Are your clients running into difficulties, or areas of uncertainty, that could be resolved by a harmonized approach among our trading partners?

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) is asking these questions. UNCITRAL has been the source of much innovation in e-com law over the years, notably with its Model Law on Electronic Commerce (1996) [PDF] that is the basis of Canadian, American and much other law on that topic.

UNCITRAL is holding a colloquium in New York next month (Feb 14 . . . [more]

Although I have the benefit of a number of internal online research guides where I work, I occasionally find myself resorting to my free legal research and writing site.

However, in so doing, I realized my site inadvertently emphasized Canadian law to the exclusion of most other foreign law. As such, I have updated the case law, legislation and government pages to include links to more British, American (and other common law) sites. I hope this will be more useful for researchers and I welcome suggestions for improving the site.

I have also added the 3 law-related movies . . . [more]

Ontario LCBO to sell beer deemed illegal in several jurisdictions.

There’s an interesting post over at Language Log, “Language skills and the law” by Mark Liberman, that sets a conundrum a bit like those strange criminal law exam questions profs are supposed to love. In this case, set out by the Philadelphia Inquirer, the issue involves a person arrested for smuggling a large quantity of drugs from Mexico into the United States as a “mule” for a well-known gang. The problem with what would otherwise be a sad but routine matter is that the defendant has minimal language skills: he is profoundly hearing impaired and seems never . . . [more]

In the wake of last weekend’s mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, I thought it might be useful to see what kinds of gun control laws exist in that state.

According to a number of sources, in the state of Arizona, pretty much anyone can buy pretty much anything that shoots. No questions asked.

The Legal Community Against Violence is a California-based public interest law centre dedicated to preventing gun violence. Last July, it published Gun Laws Matter: A Comparison of State Firearms Laws and Statistics. All 50 states were ranked according to 25 different polices. Arizona came last: . . . [more]

Can an employer fire a white employee for using the n-word if it lets black employees say it?

The anti-spam bill – Bill C-28 – was recently passed, and is expected to be in force sometime later this year.

If you think it won’t affect you because you don’t send mass emails trying to sell random products, and don’t infest other people’s computers with spyware, you would be wrong.

It applies to the sending of commercial electronic messages that many of us would not consider to be spam. An email to just one person that you consider a potential customer or client who you met at an event may fall into the prohibitions. And it applies to . . . [more]