The August 2024 prisoner exchange involving Russia, the United States, and several other countries has been lauded as a triumph of international diplomacy. Foreign hostages were not the only people released by Russia. Rights advocates were joyfully surprised and relieved that several Russian human rights defenders and political prisoners were released as part of the deal.

The August hostage exchange remains darkly tinged with the reality that Russia continues to hold over 1,300 prisoners on politically motivated charges. Worldwide, wrongfully detained people number at least a million. Authoritarian governments also conduct extraterritorial harassment to silence dissidents living abroad.

This column . . . [more]

This article offers a concise overview of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) recent efforts in shaping global artificial intelligence (AI) governance. The newly adopted Framework Convention on AI has important implications for member states and beyond, notably Canada. Organizations and employers beginning to navigate the AI landscape will want to assess the widespread impact of this treaty on businesses worldwide. . . . [more]

The increased presence of artificial intelligence (AI) in the legal sphere has been a controversial topic in discussions about access to justice. While some claim that AI will act as a great equalizer — ringing in a new age of AI-powered legal assistance for those who most need it — its rise to fame in the legal field instead seems to be catalyzing the opposite reality.^[1] As private AI companies increasingly dominate the practice of law, we are beginning to enter an era of unchecked digital capitalism, where the legal field’s most underserved participants are increasingly falling behind the . . . [more]

Each month, we tell you which three English-language cases and French-language cases have been the most viewed* on CanLII in the previous month and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this past month, the three most-consulted English-language decisions were:

1. Dickson v. Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation, 2024 SCC 10 (également disponible en français ici)

The use of demonstrative or visual aids at mediation is more widely accepted by lawyers and mediators since the legal profession began its rapid embrace of technology. Arguably, the pandemic accelerated this implementation. The technology adoption started with the exchange of electronic mediation briefs, improved access to scanned documents, and the use of video software, like Zoom and Teams. Now, counsel more commonly use Power Point or slides and electronic documentation in their introductory remarks, and present demonstrative aids in their Mediation Briefs to bolster arguments by visual communication.

Through technology, counsel can now utilize a variety of demonstrative aids . . . [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) : La juge de première instance, qui a déclaré l’appelant délinquant dangereux et a ordonné son incarcération pour une durée indéterminée, a erré dans son appréciation de la preuve relative aux facteurs aggravants contenus dans un rapport du service correctionnel; la tenue d’une nouvelle audience est ordonnée.

Intitulé . . . [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) : Le juge de première instance n’a pas erré en déclarant délinquant à contrôler l’appelant, un pédophile, ni en rendant une ordonnance d’interdiction d’utiliser Internet pour une période de 15 ans; toutefois, il est nécessaire de moduler l’ordonnance pour permettre à l’appelant d’utiliser Internet dans certaines circonstances, mais . . . [more]

On August 30^th each year, the world is reminded that hundreds of thousands of people in at least 85 countries don’t know where their loved ones are, or even whether they are alive or dead. For the victims of enforced disappearance and their families, every day is the Day of the Disappeared.

The unrelenting uncertainty and anguish of not knowing the truth of what has happened to their family member is a recognized form of torture for both the disappeared and their families. The crime of enforced disappearance cuts off the disappeared from any access to legal . . . [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) : L’appel d’un jugement de la Cour du Québec ayant déclaré les 2 appelants coupables de voies de fait simples, de voies de fait causant des lésions corporelles et de voies de fait graves à l’endroit de 6 victimes dans le contexte d’une série d’incidents violents survenus dans . . . [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]

Russia is using the law as a weapon against its own citizens to silence all criticism of its unlawful war of aggression against Ukraine. International attention has been focused on Russia’s high-profile criminal prosecutions of independent journalists and opposition politicians. Comparatively little attention is being paid to thousands of dissenters punished with hefty fines under a new censorship law that forbids the “discrediting” of Russia’s armed forces.

One Russian human rights organization, OVD-Info, is pushing back against the law by facilitating the submission of a battery of complaints to the Russian Constitutional Court. The complainants argue that the law against . . . [more]

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

Before you read any further, you’ll want Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me” playing in the background. Can you think of something that pits management rights against privacy in the workplace quite like surveillance cameras do? The potential for these unblinking eyes to be abused prompted the union in [2023] A.G.A.A. No. 3 to file a policy grievance unsuccessfully challenging their presence in one workplace. . . . [more]