The Supreme Court of Canada has released its decision in Attorney General of Canada, et al. v. Terri Jean Bedford, et al., the case involving prostitution that has been before Ontario courts eight times. In a 9-0 judgment delivered by the Chief Justice the Court dismissed the appeal by the Attorney-General and allowed the cross-appeal by Terri Bedford.

From the headnote:

Held: The appeals should be dismissed and the cross‑appeal allowed. Sections 210, 212(1)(j) and 213(1)(c) of the Criminal Code are declared to be inconsistent with the Charter. The declaration of invalidity should be suspended for one year.

. . . [more]

On November 27, 2013, the European Court of Human Rights held a Grand Chamber hearing (which was broadcast on the Internet) in the case of S.A.S v. France (Application no 43835/11). The case concerns a French Muslim woman’s complaint that French law prohibits her from wearing a full-face veil in public. As of April 2011, French Law no. 2010-1192 prohibits concealment of one’s face in all places open to the public in France. The penalty for breaking the law is a fine of up to €150 and/or compulsory citizenship classes. Separate penalties are provided for anyone forcing a woman to conceal her face in public.

UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, a three-year-old organization, has made available online a database of those provisions in nations’ constitutions that concern gender. The Constitutional Database covers 195 countries and provides relevant passages in both the original language and English translation. It is possible to download the entire database in PDF.

The database is searchable, of course, with filters available for country, region, or type of provision (e.g. reproductive rights, marriage family rights, equality…).

[Hat tip: Blogging for Equality] . . . [more]

There is a new blog post over at In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress in Washington, that discusses Christmas movies with a law-related theme.

Obviously, the post mentions Miracle on 34^th Street.

But check out the final paragraph that manages to connect the movie Gremlins to a discussion of The Restatement of Torts. . . . [more]

A recent US decision held that a person’s browsing history on web dating sites – not just his profiles, which were clearly intended for public use – could be disclosed to police because the person had authorized the administrators of the sites to know what he was looking at. The case, People v Holmes, involved a high-profile defendant in a criminal case (the person who shot up the Colorado movie theatre – allegedly), but these cases should not turn on whether the person claiming a privacy right is sympathetic.

The key for the court is contained in this passage . . . [more]

We all receive – and many of us send – electronic holiday greetings this time of year. They can range from a simple email to animated cards to elaborate videos.

Next December the new anti-spam law (aka CASL) will be in force. Depending on how we send holiday greetings, what is in them, and who we send them to, CASL will act like the Grinch to classify some of them as spam, and make the sender subject to a massive fine or other remedies.

Figuring out whether a Christmas card is spam, like any other electronic message, will not be . . . [more]

For those of us lawyers who routinely use Wikipedia as a source of basic information, it may be tempting to adduce a Wikipedia printout into evidence in court. After all, Wikipedia is more complete and often more specific than other encyclopedia out there. But is it reliable? Believe it or not, this question has been considered and debated by judges on many occasions in recent years since the advent of Wikipedia in 2001.

This past summer, the Superior Court rendered judgment in a criminal law matter and specifically considered the admissibility of Wikipedia evidence. The main issue on appeal in . . . [more]

The Court of Appeal has unanimously ruled that a private school’s decision to expel a student is not subject to judicial review.

In September, 2012, the Divisional Court quashed Appleby College’s decision to expel a student on his last day of high school for smoking pot in his residence. A quick refresher on the facts of the case can be found in a post I wrote last November.

In a nutshell, Mr. Setia was caught smoking pot in his residence at Appleby College (a prestigious Ontario private high school) on the day before his final exam of high school. . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled this week that Rafferty should receive publicly funded legal aid in preparation of his appeal as part of a s. 684 application.

Public anger towards Michael Rafferty is perhaps understandable. As I commented last year, Rafferty was referred to as a “monster” even by the judge presiding over his sentencing for his horrific murder of Tori Stafford.

The parties agreed that Rafferty did not have means to retain counsel, and had limited ability to do so himself as he has a grade 9 education, is imprisoned in segregation, and does not have . . . [more]

In a recent civil case, the British Columbia Supreme Court had to decide on the admissibility in evidence of a database of transactions under a contract, and the results of SQL analysis of the database that produced a number of Excel format spreadsheets. The people who generated the spreadsheets were available to testify in person about how they had run the queries: Animal Welfare International Inc. v. W3 International Media Ltd., 2013 BCSC 2193 (CanLII).

The opposing party submitted that the analysis done in extracting the data constituted expert evidence, and the witnesses needed to be qualified as experts . . . [more]

In early December of 2011 and 2012, I posted top 10 lists of the most consulted cases. Two lists were published each year – one for all cases consulted and the other for consultations of cases decided in within that year. With the tradition now firmly established, I’m very pleased to present for 2013 the top 10 most consulted cases on CanLII.

As in prior years, I leave it to the readers to determine the significance of any case appearing on either list.

Top 10 most consulted cases of 2013

1. R. v. Duncan, 2013 ONCJ 160
2. Meads v. Meads,

. . . [more]

The electronic documents part of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) generally operates on an opt-in basis. Thus, for example, s. 41:

A requirement under a provision of a federal law for a document to be in writing is satisfied by an electronic document if

(a) the federal law or the provision is listed in Schedule 2 or 3; and

(b) the regulations respecting the application of this section to the provision have been complied with.

To date, only the Federal Real Property and Federal Immovables Act and a small part of . . . [more]