Author: Tal Schreier

Asper Centre Celebrates 15th Anniversary

Posted on by Tal Schreier

Jutta Brunnée, Faculty of Law Dean, University Professor and James Marshall Tory Dean’s Chair in conversation with
Asper Centre Executive Director Cheryl Milne

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights celebrated 15 years at their special anniversary event on November 15, 2023.

Located within the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, the Centre and is devoted to advocacy, research, and education around constitutional rights in Canada.

With the establishment of the Asper Centre, made possible through the generous benefaction of Faculty of Law alumnus David Asper (LLM 2007), U of T is one of only a small number of schools internationally that play active roles in constitutional debates with practical impacts on constitutional rights. In addition to its innovative programs, the Centre houses a legal clinic that brings together students, faculty members, and members of the legal profession to work on significant, ground-breaking constitutional cases.

Since 2008, the centre has:

  • Led 38 Supreme Court of Canada interventions
  • Held 54 constitutional roundtables and 13 conferences/symposia
  • Supported 45 student working groups
  • Hosted 11 Constitutional Litigators-in-Residence
  • Released 37 publications

At the in-person live podcast recording of Charter: A Course (Season 3), Dean Jutta Brunnée interviewed the Asper Centre’s Executive Director, Cheryl Milne, who has been with the Centre since its inception.

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Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence, Ewa Krajewska (photo far left) interviewed Asper Centre Clinic alumni (photo second from left to right): Keely Kinley (JD 2021), Ryan Deshpande (JD 2021), Geetha Philipupillai (JD 2017), and Neil Abraham (JD 2016).

This event celebrated the Asper Centre’s commitment to articulating Canada’s constitutional vision to the broader world.

Special thanks to the evening’s participants and to all who attended!

Asper Centre 2022-2023 Annual Report

Watch the Charter @ 40: The Asper Centre brought together its past Constitutional Litigators-in-Residence for a special conversation with Executive Director, Cheryl Milne, reflecting on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms at 40 years.

From U of T Law website at https://www.law.utoronto.ca/news/asper-centre-15th-anniversary

Reflections on Climate Justice and the Law

Posted on by Tal Schreier

by Carson Cook, Eva Boghosian and Hannah West

As members of the 2023-2024 Environmental Rights Student Working Group at the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, eleven first year students at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law have been researching various legal doctrines, legislation, and case law related to how environmental rights are conceived in Canada, how they can be used/acted upon, and how they might be improved. Their research has covered environmental constitutional litigation like Mathur v Ontario; how Indigenous rights and knowledge interact with environment law; and, legal doctrines from other jurisdictions that provide environmental protection. The outcome of this research will be a guidebook that informs community organizers and activists of the state of environmental rights within Canada.

To take part in the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, we asked these students to reflect on their research and the potential for climate action within Canada. A common theme, and perhaps a surprising one, was positivity surrounding Canada’s ability to pursue climate action within its legal framework. Though the students identified various issues of implementation, they appreciated finding processes within the Canadian legal system that can support environmental protection and climate action. Students also valued their research as it provided them with an opportunity to learn about other jurisdictions and the processes used internationally that could be adopted within Canada. Though, in addition to issues of implementation, the students noted the legal system only moves in small steps. However, the students noted they felt more empowered to think about furthering climate action with their new knowledge of these environmental legal frameworks.

Another recurring insight from the students was how important education for the general public is for meaningful climate action – highly relevant to the Environmental Rights Working Group’s goal of creating a guidebook for lay-people to understand their legal rights with respect to the environment. As law students and future lawyers, we are in positions of privilege to have the tools and training to research complicated theories and frameworks that greatly affect how climate action is pursued, and we therefore have a duty to help educate those around us. Importantly, the students noted, this education should not simply be providing information, but conducted in a way that empowers people – to build their skills, knowledge, and confidence so that they can work and learn in the environmental space to further change.

Such education builds power for all of us to push for change, as legal professionals or otherwise. This was the final theme from our reflection session with the student researchers – the importance of an analysis of power when working for climate justice. While legal processes can be and have been created to further environmental protection, those processes can be subverted when there is a power imbalance between adversarial parties. While law affects social values, social values also affect the law. The collective power of a community asking for change or participating in decision-making processes is key for climate action to occur. This is not to pin the causes of climate change on individuals, but it is to recognize the agency and power we each hold, and that builds when we work together to tackle otherwise insurmountable problems. The Environmental Rights Working Group has been one small way in which we, as law students, are building power within ourselves, amongst each other, and within our Toronto community.

Carson Cook, Eva Boghosian and Hannah West are JD Candidates at the Faculty of Law and are the Asper Centre Environmental Rights Working Group leaders this year. 

Meet Ewa Krajewska, our new Constitutional Litigator in Residence

Posted on by Tal Schreier

by Emma Davies

Ewa Krajewska, a civil litigator and partner at Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP, is co-teaching the Asper Centre’s clinic course as the 2023 Constitutional Litigator in Residence. Over the summer, I sat down with Ms. Krajewska to discuss both her career to date and her new role.

Even prior to law school, Ms. Krajewska enjoyed studying subjects like economics and politics because they were oriented toward making systemic change. She similarly became interested in practicing constitutional law during her clerkship with former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella. As she explained, “I’ve always been interested in constitutional law from the perspective of how we organize the relationship between a country’s citizens and government to ensure that a democracy properly protects its minorities.” She cemented this interest as an associate at a national law firm, where she represented a number of institutional clients and public bodies.

Ms. Krajewska’s career in litigation has also allowed her to become a life-long learner. “Every case is a window into a universe that you would not normally know about. It’s like one of those very deep and focused New Yorker articles on some obscure topic.” Her past cases have allowed her to learn about everything from liver transplants to the relative value of buildings in downtown Toronto. In her view, litigation is the perfect career for anyone who is curious not just about the law, but about the world in general.

When asked about cases from her career, Ms. Krajewska highlighted two as particularly memorable: a judicial review application regarding the Chief Electoral Officer, and a challenge to the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in 2022. The former was expedited because of the election schedule, meaning that she had the rare opportunity to litigate a case from start to finish in just six weeks. The latter case was equally unique in that it involved a government Act that is almost never invoked and delved into issues like how Cabinet confidences should be treated in extraordinary circumstances. As she explained, “it’s a lot of fun to litigate these hard, new, complex issues and propose to the court the right way of interpreting the factual record.”

Looking ahead to her new role, Ms. Krajewska spoke about her love of teaching. As part of the clinic course, she particularly wants to show students the importance of marshalling the factual record to help achieve desired constitutional outcomes. I also asked Ms. Krajewska what advice she would give to current law students: “I think sometimes we’re dissuaded from taking classes in areas of law that we’re less interested in, but there’s something to be said for taking classes from excellent teachers.” Some of her favourite classes from law school had nothing to do with constitutional litigation, and yet she still relies on the skills she learned from those classes to this day. As she put it, “it’s important to give yourself the permission to have some fun, and to take the classes that may not have been on your radar.”

This interview has been edited for clarity

Emma Davies is a 2L student at the Faculty of Law and was an Asper Centre Summer Research Assistant in 2023

Constitutional Litigator in Residence for 2023

Posted on by Tal Schreier

We are pleased to announce that Ewa Krajewska has been selected as the Asper Centre’s Constitutional Litigator in Residence for Fall 2023.

Ewa will be co-teaching the Asper Centre’s Clinic Course in the Fall 2023 term with our Executive Director, Cheryl Milne. This course offers upper year law students at the University of Toronto the unique opportunity to engage in Charter rights advocacy, including Charter litigation. Ewa will bring her extensive constitutional litigation experience to the role and will greatly enrich the Asper Centre’s Clinic students next term. Amongst other projects, Ewa will work with students on the Asper Centre’s intervention in the Mathur climate justice case at the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Ewa Krajewska, B.A. (McGill) 2004, LL.B. BCL (2008), was called to the Bar of Ontario in 2009. She has practiced civil litigation for 14 years, specializing in public and constitutional law. She practiced at a large national firm for 12 years before joining Henein Hutchison Robitaille LLP in January of 2022. She was counsel to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association on the Public Order Emergency Commission. She has appeared at all levels of court including at the Supreme Court of Canada on important constitutional and estates matters.

View the Asper Centre’s past Constitutional Litigators in Residence HERE.