Last week a London criminal court tackled the thorny problem of whether a witness should be required to remove her full-face veil.

Judge Peter Murphy ruled the witness must remove it when giving evidence but may wear it at other times during her trial. When she is not wearing it only the judge, jury and counsel will be permitted to see her face. Courtroom artists will not be permitted to sketch he without her veil. See the judge’s reasons here: The Queen -v- D (R) . . . [more]

Each Monday we present brief excerpts of recent posts from five of Canada's award-winning legal blogs chosen at random* from forty-one recent Clawbie winners. In this way we hope to promote their work, with their permission, to as wide an audience as possible.

This week the randomly selected blogs are 1. BC Injury Law Blog   2. The Court    3. Slater Vecchio Connected   4. Le Blogue du CRL    5. Ontario Condo Law Blog

Two tragic deaths, months and thousands of kilometers apart, recently collided in my consciousness as I pondered the topic of my latest contribution to this SLAW Justice Column.

In late March of 2013 a jury found Richard Kachkar not criminally responsible (“NCR”) in the tragic high-profile death of Sgt. Ryan Russel. Kachkar had been charged with murder after an early morning barefoot rampage in a stolen snowplow. By the time the evidence at this trial was done, both the defence and crown psychiatric experts had reached the conclusion that Kachkar was suffering from a serious and debilitating mental illness. The . . . [more]

The Ontario Court of Appeal released a decision earlier this month in Delicata v. Incorporated Synod of the Diocese of Huron, resolving a dispute between the congregation of an Anglican church in Windsor and the larger Anglican Church of Canada. The conflict originated in the Anglican Church of Canada’s blessing of same-sex marriages. The congregation of St. Aidan’s voted to leave the Synod of the Diocese of Huron after the Bishop of the Synod accepted a resolution to “grant permission to clergy, whose conscience permits, to bless the duly solemnized and registered civil marriages between same-sex couples.”

Although the . . . [more]

Énergie, Mines et Ressources : Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro n'a pas démontré que la Régie de l'énergie avait commis une erreur révisable en confirmant le calcul de la capacité de transport disponible établi par Hydro-Québec ayant mené celle-ci à conclure que la capacité du réseau québécois ne suffira pas à permettre de transporter à la fois la charge locale et une partie de l'énergie en provenance des futures centrales du Bas-Churchill (C.S.).

Occasionally here at SLAW I feel the need to represent the East Coast with an appropriately themed post. Earlier this week an interesting event happened when a Greenland Shark was brought back to Halifax in order to be examined. Why is this interesting? Because this is a shark that can grow over 6 metres in length, weigh over 2000 lbs, (perhaps larger than Great Whites) and we (meaning science type folk) know virtually nothing about it! This animal lives in the coldest, deepest parts of the ocean and a study from the 50’s estimated that they could live to be . . . [more]

Slaw readers who are also hockey fans might be aware of this new NHL penalty: 2 minutes for removing your helmet before a fight.

Well, last night we were given a little reminder to “not judge a pugilist book by its cover”; along with “the code” among hockey fighters. Not impressed with the new rule, Krys Barch of the Islanders and Brett Gallant of the Devils found themselves a loophole — they took each other’s helmets off. Here’s the video clip:

Given the number of physical gestures leading up to the fight, one would assume they hadn’t discussed the . . . [more]

In my last column I talked about building reputations by being quoted in the media (proactive media relations). However, when you’re involved in something of interest to the media, it’s not always good news. Reputations can be threatened as well as made by media coverage. Reactive media relations involves the careful management of reputations, whether on behalf of a client, a lawyer, a practice group, or the whole firm.

How often does something occur in a law firm that unleashes the hounds of the media? More often than you might think. I had no trouble recalling ten examples from my . . . [more]

This is one of those fillips where I let someone else do all the work. And in this case it’s a young man named Tim Blais who’ll do the heavy lifting. But that’s okay because the force is with him. The unified force, it seems.

Tim’s a recent graduate of the Master of Science program at McGill University whose thesis goes by the catchy title of “A new quantization condition for parity-violating three-dimensional gravity.” Excellent, right?

But Tim’s a little different. Oh sure, he’s prepared to violate parity, but he does it in the coolest way — at least when . . . [more]

The Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. recently produced a report comparing the legal situation of temporary or guest workers in 14 countries (including Canada):

“The report includes a comparative analysis and individual chapters on each country, the EU, and relevant international arrangements. It provides a general overview of a variety of immigration systems, and addresses issues such as eligibility criteria for the admission of guest workers and their families, guest workers’ recruitment and sponsorship, and visa requirements. The report further discusses the tying of temporary workers to their employers in some countries; the duration and the conditions that

. . . [more]

Constraints are important. They can define the nature of what we see, as when you drop a frame onto an image, suggesting, at least, that what is framed is now “art”, or when you slap some numbers and lots of indentation onto a patch of text, making it look like legislation. Poetry used to have constraints — rhyme schemes, meter, number of feet and lines, etc. — which, I suppose, was one way you knew it was poetry; and haiku is among the few surviving examples of constrained poetry in common use today.

So long as you adopt the 5-7-5 . . . [more]

The recent controversy over the Sam the Record Man sign, Ryerson University and the City of Toronto is interesting on a number of levels. There is the heritage aspect of the matter and there is the legal contractual element – Ryerson agreed to find a place to hang the sign, then decided that it didn’t want to do so.

Much has been written about the above.

What interests me personally, and as an adjunct professor at a law school, is the ethical element.

Ryerson is an institution of higher learning. It teaches students.

And so, call me old-fashioned, but . . . [more]