It might be time to visit once again the substance and situation of Bill C-232, which received 3rd Reading on March 31 and awaits Royal Assent to become law. The text the legislation is as follows:

1. Section 5 of the Supreme Court Act is renumbered as subsection 5(1) and is amended by adding the following:

(2) In addition, any person referred to in subsection (1) may be appointed a judge who understands French and English without the assistance of an interpreter.

1. L’article 5 de la Loi sur la Cour suprême devient le paragraphe 5(1) et est modifié par

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♬ Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Capoeira mata um!
Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! Capoeira mata um!♬

Music by: Serapis Bey, in the 1993 film Only the Strong
(Sorry David)

This past Friday the Supreme Court of British Columbia released the May 6 decision in Koubi v. Mazda Canada Inc. [Mazda], certifying a class-action under the Class Proceeding Act (CPA) on behalf of representative who purchased 17,909 Mazda3 vehicles between 2004 and 2007 over an alleged door lock defect.

The 20 authorized dealers in B.C. are defendants in the action. Similar actions have been filed in Ontario and . . . [more]

Today’s decision in R. v. National Post, 2010 SCC 16 (CanLII) contains the following line from Binnie J for the majority (McLachlin C.J. and Binnie, Deschamps, Fish, Charron, Rothstein and Cromwell JJ.:

As recently pointed out in Grant v. Torstar Corp., 2009 SCC 61, [2009] 3 S.C.R. 640, the protection attaching to freedom of expression is not limited to the “traditional media”, but is enjoyed by “everyone” (in the words of s. 2(b) of the Charter) who chooses to exercise his or her freedom of expression on matters of public interest whether by blogging, tweeting, standing on a street corner

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The Supreme Court of India yesterday delivered a lengthy judgment in the case of Smt. Selvi & Ors. v. State of Karnataka Criminal Appeal No. 1267 of 2004, which, in the words of the Chief Justice, involved a:

batch of criminal appeals [relating] to the involuntary administration of certain scientific techniques, namely narcoanalysis, polygraph examination and the Brain Electrical Activation Profile (BEAP) test for the purpose of improving investigation efforts in criminal cases.

The three-judge bench held that “the compulsory administration the impugned techniques violated the ‘right against self-incrimination'” and violated as well “the standard of ‘substantive due process’ . . . [more]

In the wake of much public debate over the anti-hate provisions of human rights legislation, the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission applied to the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal the February 2010 Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decision, William Whatcott v. Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal.

As many Slaw readers will already know from the extensive coverage this has received, the Ontario Divisional Court released an important ruling in Warman v. Wilkins-Fournier, a case in which Richard Warman is suing a number of persons for defamation. Warman had tried to get the court to compel disclosure from one of the defendants of information that would help identify various other defendants who had posted on anonymously on the internet message board run by the first defendant.

The court overturned a ruling by the trier of the motion to compel disclosure and sent the matter back for . . . [more]

There is a draft copy of the new Alberta Rules of Court available.

As you learned from Slaw the new Rules of Court are scheduled to come into force on November 1, 2010.

There is this big caveat to be aware of:

Please note: This draft of the new Alberta Rules of Court is provided for information purposes only, and is subject to further revision. The new Alberta Rules of Court have not yet received the final recommendation of the Minister of Justice and Attorney General, nor has the regulation been made by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. Reference

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Much excitement in the lead-up to BIO 2010, the international biotechnology convention being held this week in Chicago.

The Ministry of Research and Innovation released a new Life Sciences Commercialization Strategy, which explains where at least part of their recent budget increase will be going. We’ll see how it’s received at BIO over the next few days.

At least some of the biotech trends we’ve been following at the Cross-Border Biotech Blog will receive a warm reception at BIO this week: the conference features sessions on commercialization by non-profit foundations, comparative effectiveness and personalized medicine, follow-on . . . [more]

The recent decision of Justice Dougald McDermid to impose a temporary publication ban in the trial of those accused of murdering Victoria Stafford has caused a considerable furore. (See the Star story.) According to McDermid’s order the press may only say the following:

As we previously reported, Terri-Lynne McClintic was scheduled to appear on April 30, 2010, in the Superior Court of Justice at Woodstock but because of a temporary publication ban, we are prohibited by court order from providing any further information until further order of the court.

Speculation is that whatever is being suppressed will in fact wind . . . [more]

The City of Toronto is gearing up for its mayoral elections over the next few months, and public transit tops the list for issues of public interest. But one incident on the Toronto subway system has residents worried about safety.

On Apr. 24 at 8:30 p.m., 79-year-old Yusuf Hizel was traveling eastbound on the Bloor-Danforth line when he was assaulted by two individuals who took his wallet. Although the train was full, nobody intervened or attempted to obtain assistance from subway officials. The incident appears to have happened relatively quickly, which may have also limited the ability of other . . . [more]

A Patent Prosecution Highway (“PPH”) program was implemented between the Canadian and US patent offices in 2008 to accelerate patent examination and issuance. Under the PPH, an applicant with allowable claims in either a US or Canadian patent application may request that the other country’s patent office provide a fast track examination to the corresponding application. The sharing of search and examination results between offices is intended to expedite and improve the quality of examination.

As an example of how the PPH works, if a US patent application is examined and claims are approved as patentable (“allowable”) by the US . . . [more]

I made a half-baked comment in response to Omar’s April 4th post on the procedural issues in dealing with the communications that employees have with their legal counsel through employer e-mail systems. This is a post based on some “more baked” thoughts that I plan to incorporate into a book chapter under development.

The thoughts I’ve included are strictly on the procedure for dealing with these “hot” e-mails. I’ll leave the substantive issue about the legitimacy of an employee privilege claim to another day, but will set up the thoughts below by noting that the issue is highly uncertain in . . . [more]