This morning the court released Alberta v. Wilson Colony of Hutterian Brethren, a decision that turns on whether Alberta’s driving licence requirements, which mandate photographs of licensed drivers to address identity theft breach the Hutterians’ Charter rights of Freedom of Religion.

The court split with Chief Justice McLachlin writing the majority judgment for herself and Justices Binnie, Deschamps and Rothstein. Strong dissent from Justice Abella, with Justices LeBel and Fish agreeing. The Court reversed the Alberta Court of Appeal and the Queen’s Bench, which had both struck down the Regulation in question.

“The goal of setting up a . . . [more]

Here we continue the thread from my previous post. In honour of the Apollo 11 mission's 40th anniversary, we are looking at advertising/entertainment/branding issues we may not have expected – as a result of space exploration. This installment: contest bootcamp. Prepare for a hijacking.

Last week I posted my commentary here on Slaw on the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in R. v. Grant.

To recap briefly, Grant was a young black male who aroused the suspicions of some police by staring at them and “fidgeting”. Hardly “reasonable grounds” to conduct an investigative detention, yet that’s exactly what happened. In the course of a ‘conversation’ with police, Grant eventually admitted to being in possession of a small quantity of marijuana and a firearm. Despite finding his detention to be arbitrary and unlawful, the SCC ruled the evidence admissible under a . . . [more]

How much is a lot of money? This is a very personal question that depends upon many factors; how much is in the bank account; did your pay cheque bounce; how many of your kids are in day care; what is your rent; how much is your student loan?

The question popped in my head as I browsed an article by Diane Saxe via Lexology titled “My neighbour cut down my tree.” The article alerted me to the news that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Small Claims Court maximum claim amount is rising to $25,000 on January 1, 2010. . . . [more]

It seems that we’ve not yet managed to talk about Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada on Slaw, an unfortunate omission. LRWC is a committee of lawyers who work to protect the very people — lawyers — who promote human rights around the world. In their concise summary:

LRWC seeks to identify illegal actions against advocates, campaign for the cessation of such actions and lobby for the implementation of effective immediate and long-term remedies.

They list their campaigns by country (some 50) on their website, including, I should note, Canada and six instances of what the LRWC felt to be violation of . . . [more]

Many organizations and individuals who are not traditional “entertainment” entities now find themselves increasingly pulled into the world of entertainment, branding and advertising. NASA and its astronauts are no exception. Over the next couple of posts, I will touch on some of these legal issues as found on the far side of space exploration. Here is a first installment: Part I. The Rum, The Watch and the Astronaut.

It has been a good week for people interested in Canadian government documents related to law and justice issues.

The most recent Weekly Checklist of Government of Canada Publications includes 2 parliamentary committee reports:

• the June 2009 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security entitled Statutory Review of the DNA Identification Act which examines how effective the National DNA Data Bank has been as a police investigation tool
• the June 2009 report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights entitled Ending Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Common Approach that looks

. . . [more]

As I hope everyone knows, TOROG — the Toronto Opinions Group — kindly allows Slaw to publish some of their memos and precedents on third party opinions. A new document has just been added to the collection: “Limitations Act, 2002 (Ontario) – Proposals for Improving Contract Drafting and Appropriate Opinion Qualification Practice – June, 2009,” which, like the others, is available in PDF.

This relatively lengthy document (18pp.) describes the impact of recent changes to the Ontario Limitations Act on one’s freedom to contract with respect to a limitation period. The document also contains a sample provisions of purchase . . . [more]

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings into the Judge Sonia Sotomayor appointment to the United States Supreme Court have reminded me why the idea of importing these hearings for real into our Canadian SCC appointment process bothers me. They’ve reminded me in a lot of ways, but one that stands out from this time around is the way in which the exchanges are antithetical to the process of judging. Judging should involve thoughtful consideration of the evidence, and, depending on the nature of the case, especially constitutional cases, of the context of the case. Of course, judges have predispositions, based on . . . [more]

The Federal government has just launched public consultations intended to lead to a new copyright reform bill. The last few attempts to revise copyright law have not become law – but have been highly controversial. This is an important topic that affects things we do every day. The difficult part is striking the right balance between the entertainment industry desire to charge for and control everything, and the consumer expectation of getting everything free all the time. Past efforts have not accomplished that balance, and in some ways took a step backwards by being stuck in a digital time warp. . . . [more]

Everyone this week seemed to be extending a helping hand:

• The U.S. Senate reached out to small business, moving toward reauthorizing the popular SBIR grant program, even expanding eligibility to venture capital-funded companies this time around;
• Senator Kennedy, Governor Howard Dean and the National Venture Capital Association all reached out a hand to developers of novel biologic drugs, supporting at least 12 years of data exclusivity that would prevent the entry of biosimilars (an interesting development, since the adminstration has been pushing for only 7 years);
• The UK government is handing out “innovation passes” to developers of some novel

. . . [more]

_­­I had the opportunity to hear one of the Chief Justices speak at the Israeli Supreme Court today. He explained some of the basics of the Israeli judicial system, and shared some of the challenges that they currently face.

Unlike some jurisdictions, Israel has had no problem drawing on international law for their domestic discourse. For example, when developing their position on freedom of expression, they looked to the most robust and liberal legal discourse on the subject and borrowed freely from American case law.

As a Jewish state they also do use some Jewish religious law, although in . . . [more]