One Sunday each month we bring you a summary from Supreme Advocacy LLP of recent decisions at the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Advocacy LLP offers a weekly electronic newsletter, Supreme Advocacy Letter, to which you may subscribe. It’s a summary of all Appeals, Oral Judgments and Leaves to Appeal granted from June 22 to July 19, 2023 inclusive.

Appeals

Criminal Law: Jury Instructions; Criminal Organizations
R. v. Abdullahi, 2021 ONCA 82; 2023 SCC 19 (40049)

Appellate courts should adopt a “functional approach” to the review of jury instructions for legal error. This respects the jury’s role . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Les verdicts d’acquittement à l’égard de 2 chefs de séquestration résultent d’une erreur de droit, mais ils sont conciliables avec les déclarations de culpabilité sous les 2 chefs d’agression sexuelle, de sorte qu’ils ne sont pas déraisonnables et sont donc à l’abri d’une intervention en appel.

Intitulé . . . [more]

Canada has announced its candidacy for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council to begin in 2028. According to Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly, Canada wants to reaffirm its “leadership in championing human rights around the world” given that human rights are under attack globally.

When setting up the UN Human Rights Council in 2006, the UN General Assembly decided that all Council members would be required to live up to “the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.” Canada has a vaunted international reputation for human rights, but closer examination reveals . . . [more]

The controversy over the Ontario government’s resurrection of the King’s Counsel designation is now in its third week. And interest in the controversy is not limited to the legal community alone; yesterday, the Toronto Star reported (at the top of its website): “Advertising ‘King’s Counsel’ titles may violate Ontario lawyers’ rules on misleading marketing, experts caution”.

Let’s explore that further.

The Star article quoted four experts: a law professor (Slaw legal ethics columnist Amy Salyzyn); two former Treasurers of the Law Society of Ontario (“LSO”); and the current Treasurer, Jacqueline Horvat, who, according to the article, had . . . [more]

We have several expressions denoting the relationship of a set of circumstances to the law: does they conform to “the letter of the law”? Should we apply “black letter law”? Or do they not meet the strict confines of the law, but are in “the spirit of the law? Is the law permitting or proscribing this particular set of circumstances? Of course, there are many other words and phrases associated with law. In this post, I consider whether simple legality really captures the purpose or sense of granting citizenship.

Under the current requirements, those who satisfy the qualifications for citizenship, . . . [more]

We’ve all been there, started typing a sentence without realizing our caps lock was on ONLY FOR IT TO END UP LOOKING LIKE THIS. Ordinarily, we’d probably backspace and re-type it, but what if I told you there was a handy feature in Microsoft Word which can change your sentence case for you in one click eliminating the need for deleting and re-typing?

Let me introduce you to the “Change Case” feature. IF YOU END UP IN A SITUATION LIKE THIS all you have to do, is highlight the text you want to fix, and then press SHIFT + F3. . . . [more]

As I paddled in the middle of the Bay of Fundy I looked into the distance and saw the outline of Campobello Island’s shore. The shimmer of warm air hovered over the land, creating a beautiful haze. Land!, I thought. Tired, hungry, and thirsty, I figured it wouldn’t be long and picked up my pace, hopping onto my knees to engage my butterfly stroke. My spirits rose but it was short-lived. An hour later I looked up and to my dismay and the shore didn’t look any closer. It felt like the wind had picked up and the currents were . . . [more]

Every week we present the summary of a decision handed down by a Québec court provided to us by SOQUIJ and considered to be of interest to our readers throughout Canada. SOQUIJ is attached to the Québec Department of Justice and collects, analyzes, enriches, and disseminates legal information in Québec.

PÉNAL (DROIT) : Une peine totale de 2 ans moins 1 jour d’emprisonnement, accompagnée d’une probation de 3 ans, est substituée à celle de 42 mois d’emprisonnement qui a été prononcée en première instance sous des chefs de possession d’une arme à feu à autorisation restreinte chargée sans permission, de . . . [more]

Written by Daniel Standing LL.B., Editor, First Reference

From fried chicken to money scams, 2023 NSLB 76 (CanLII) has it all. Though it has some unusual components, the case of wrongful dismissal provides employers with good advice about choosing a penalty that fits an employee’s “crime,” and it illustrates how critical it is to fully investigate alleged wrongdoing before terminating someone’s employment. . . . [more]

One of my family’s often-repeated fables is how my great grandfather didn’t believe the moon landing was real. People of his generation witnessed the invention of the automobile, the television and now space travel. For some, it was too much to comprehend, and the response was to deny it was happening. Pre internet, that was a simpler task.

The psychological harm associated with technological change, particularly the exponential change we are experiencing, is well documented. Numerous articles have been written on why people feel overwhelmed by technological change and the effects of technostress, the inability to cope with new computer . . . [more]

In my last Slaw column, I dealt with the rapid responses to the “authorship” question from the leading journal Nature and the U.S. Copyright Office to the sudden arrival of large language models (LLM), such as ChatGPT. Both publisher and government agency made it clear that they will not accept such works for publication or copyright. More recently, Nature reported this June that it will now require authors to state that their submission does not use AI-generated images.

With the state and impact of LLM continuing to rapidly evolve, I want to follow with further reflections on the authorship . . . [more]