David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

Wishful Thinking: The Supreme Court of Canada Looks at Canadian Democracy in the Charter Era
2014-11-18 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Toronto)
Mary Eberts
Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
University of Toronto
Moderator:
Yasmin Dawood
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
NOTE DATE CHANGE: Tuesday, November 18th 2014
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
MARY EBERTS received her legal education at Western and the Harvard Law School, and is a member of the Bar of Ontario. She joined a Bay St. law firm after several years of teaching at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and was a partner at that firm until opening a small firm specializing in Charter and public law litigation. From this base in Toronto, she has appeared as counsel to parties and interveners in the Supreme Court of Canada, Courts of Appeal and Superior Courts in Ontario and other provinces, the Federal Court and Court of Appeal, and before administrative tribunals and inquests in Ontario and other provinces. She was active in securing the present language of section 15 of the Charter, and was one of the founders of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). Since 1991, she has been litigation counsel to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). Mary held the Gordon Henderson Chair in Human Rights at the University of Ottawa in 2004-2005 and the Ariel Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the College of Law, University of Saskachewan in 2011 and 2012, where she taught courses in test case litigation. Recognition of her work includes the Law Society Medal, the Governor-General’s Award in Honour of the Persons’ Case, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and several honourary degrees.

A light lunch will be provided.

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

R v Kokopenace: The Panel
2014-10-15 12:30 - 14:00
The Aboriginal Law Program Speaker Series and the Constitutional Roundtable present:
“R v Kokopenace: The Panel”

Heard before the Supreme Court on October 6, 2014, R v Kokopenace is a case concerning the representativeness of jury panels in Ontario, particularly with respect to First Nations people living on-reserve and the role of s. 6(8) of the Juries Act. Issues in this case involve the constitutional right to an impartial jury, the meaning of representativeness, reasonable efforts required by the Crown to attain representativeness, and the appropriate remedy failing reasonable efforts. Join us for a panel of the parties (featured below), who will discuss their arguments to the Court and responses to questions posed by the Bench. Panelists include Brian Greenspan, Jessica Orkin, Cheryl Milne, Mary Eberts, Julian Roy and Christa Big Canoe.
View event poster here.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
12:30-2pm
Alumni Hall, Victoria College, University of Toronto
Lunch provided. RSVP: n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

Deadline: Call for Papers October 15, 2014
2014-10-15
The Interplay between Sections 7 and 15 of the Charter
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, St. George Campus – February 27, 2015
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference examining in detail the interplay between sections 7 and 15 of the Charter.
The Centre invites papers that stimulate and develop an ongoing exploration of the relationship between sections 7 and 15. Issues that can be addressed include:
• Is equality a principle of fundamental justice under section 7?
• How have the courts treated the two separate grounds for challenging government action?
• Are their strategic advantages to pleading both grounds or only one?
• How can different cases challenging the same law proceed differently based on the ground pleaded (e.g. Bedford and Downtown Eastside Sex Workers)?
• How does the relationship between the sections play out in circumstances such as mandatory minimum sentencing, challenges to the NCR provisions, human smuggling legislation?
Other conference topics may include issues such the role of individual choice in respect of both equality and liberty rights; harm or dignity as central themes; socio-economic rights or the rights of the poor; and arbitrariness as an element of the analysis under each section.
The papers will be utilized as the central themes on various panels across the one day conference and selected conference papers will be considered for publication as part of a special issue of the National Journal of Constitutional Law. Authors of papers chosen for presentation will be notified by November 1, 2014. Final (for the conference) papers are due by February 6, 2015.
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is a centre within the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law devoted to advocacy, research and education in the areas of constitutional rights in Canada. For more information about the Centre go to www.aspercentre.ca.
For those interested in participating, please send an abstract (max: 250 words) of your intended paper with a 1-2 paragraph biography to: Cheryl Milne at cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca
Deadline for Submissions: October 15, 2014

The Case Against 8 - Special Screening
2014-10-14 12:00 - 14:00
Battles Are Won Because They Are Fought!
The Case Against 8 is a behind-the-scenes look inside the historic case to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The high-profile trial first makes headlines with the unlikely pairing of Ted Olson and David Boies, political foes who last faced off as opposing attorneys in Bush v Gore. The film also follows the plaintiffs, two gay couples who find their families at the centre of the same-sex marriage controversy. Five years in the making, this is the story of how they took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the US Supreme Court.
Co-sponsored with Out in Law, and the International Human Rights Program.
Event date: Tuesday, October 14, 2014, from 12:10 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Alumni Hall (VC 112), Victoria College, University of Toronto
View the Event Poster HERE.

Foreign Relations Law
2014-09-12 12:30 - 14:00
Campbell McLachlan, Q.C. Victoria University of Wellington Foreign Relations Law
Reviewer/Discussant:
Stephen Toope
Friday, September 12, 2014
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
What legal principles govern the external exercise of the public power of states within common law legal systems? Foreign Relations Law tackles three fundamental issues: the distribution of the foreign relations power between the or¬gans of government; the impact of the foreign relations power on individual rights; and the treatment of the foreign state within the municipal legal system. Focusing on the four Anglo-Commonwealth states (the United Kingdom, Aus¬tralia, Canada and New Zealand), McLachlan examines the interaction between public international law and national law and demonstrates that the prime function of foreign relations law is not to exclude foreign affairs from legal regulation, but to allocate jurisdiction and determine applicable law in cases involving the external exercise of the public power of states: between the organs of the state; amongst the national legal systems of different states; and between the national and the international legal systems.
Campbell McLachlan QC is Professor of International Law at Victoria University of Wellington. He is a New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fel¬low and sometime Visiting Fellow at All Souls Col¬lege, Oxford. He has been President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law and taught at The Hague Academy of International Law. He is a member of Essex Court Chambers (London) and Bankside Chambers (Auckland & Singapore).
Stephen Toope recently stepped down after eight years as President and Vice-Chancellor of UBC. In January, he will become Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at U of T. He previously served as Dean of Law at McGill and President of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. He has written extensively on the interplay between domestic and international law, especially in the area of human rights.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

Clinic Applications Deadline
2014-07-07
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: DAVID ASPER CENTRE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (LAW391H1F) FALL 2013
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: HALF TERM CLINIC – WINTER 2014
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students wishing to apply for these courses must email a 1-2 page statement of interest to Cheryl Milne, cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca by July 7, 2014. Please indicate the following:
(a) previous upper-year courses in constitutional law or human rights law or experience that you consider to be equivalent (note pre/co-requisite for half-term clinic);
(b) indicators of academic, analytical and research and writing ability, which may include grades in related classes;
(c) any experience in human rights or constitutional issues;
(d) any experience with lawyering or advocacy;
(e) why you wish to enroll in the Clinic.
Successful applicants will be notified of admission in time for course registration prior to July 14, 2013.

Privacy at Risk?
2014-03-12 16:00 - 17:30
David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights and Centre for Innovation Law and Policy, Faculty of Law
present
Privacy at Risk?
The NSA and CSEC, its Canadian Surveillance Partner

Wednesday, March 12, 2014
4:00 – 5:30
Emmanuel College, 75 Queen’s Park Crescent
Room EM 001
Revelations by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden have drawn much needed attention to the involvement of governments, including the government of Canada, in internet spying. Recent focus has been place on the role that the Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC), an organization of which few Canadians are aware, plays in such surveillance, including spying on Canadians at airports using free Wi-Fi. What are the legal limits of this surveillance? What rights are impacted by the government when they engage in this activity? Experts from the Faculty of Law and the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Glob al Affairs will address what we know about what is happening, what laws apply, and what should concern us about the implications of this activity by governments around the world and in Canada.

Panelists:
Lisa Austin, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Kent Roach, Professor and Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy, Faculty of Law
Hamish Stewart, Professor, Faculty of Law
Christopher Parsons, Post-doctoral Fellow, Citizens Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs
Moderator:
Simon Stern, Associate Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Innovation Law & Policy, Faculty of Law

Deepening Democratic Transformation in South Africa Through Participatory Constitutional Remedies
2014-02-28 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Sandra Liebenberg
H.F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law
University of Stellenbosch Law Faculty
Deepening democratic transformation in South Africa through
participatory constitutional remedies

Prepared for Conference, Constitutional Remedies: Are they Effective and Meaningful?
David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, University of Toronto
There is an intimate association between the exercise of court’s remedial powers to address violations of constitutional rights and the particular animating purposes and ideals of the particular Constitution understood in its unique social and historical context. Expressed differently, cognisance of the relevant constitutional provisions and remedial powers vested in the courts tells us very little about the principles which should guide the crafting of remedies for violations of the rights enshrined in a constitution’s bill or charter of fundamental rights. In order to understand some of the most acute remedial challenges facing the South African courts in human rights litigation, it is necessary to provide an account first of the nature of the South African Bill of Rights, and the overall role it is designed to fulfil in the context of South African society. Thereafter I turn to examining the general principles which have been articulated in relation to the crafting of constitutional remedies. The third section draws on the general purposive account of the Constitution and the remedial principles identified to discuss one of the emerging remedial strategies of the Constitutional Court of South Africa – orders of meaningful engagement. I choose to focus on this particular remedy (one of a wide range of available constitutional remedies deployed by the South African courts) as it illustrates an innovative response to one of their most pressing challenges faced by the South African courts in designing constitutional remedies – namely how to give effect to the far-reaching positive obligations imposed by a range of provisions in the Bill of Rights. It also resonates with the deeper underlying values and purposes of the Constitution discussed in the first part of the paper. I consider the multi-faced nature of this remedy as it has been applied in various cases, particularly eviction and education rights cases, where, to date, the remedy has found its primary application. The relationship of meaningful engagement as a remedy with the criteria for assessing compliance with constitutional norms in the first phases of constitutional analysis (rights definition and limitations), and the features that distinguish it from the supervisory orders and structural interdictions/injunctions more familiar to constitutional lawyers are also considered. The final part of the paper evaluates the remedy and its potential to serve as a workable remedial mechanism for advancing the transformative commitments of the South African Constitution.
This is the lunchtime plenary for the conference, “Constitutional Remedies: Are They Effective and Meaningful?”

February 28th, 2014

Constitutional Remedies: Are They Effective and Meaningful?
2014-02-28 08:30 - 17:00
REGISTRATION NOW CLOSED
LINK TO LIVE WEBCAST
Keynote Address
For more information contact Kara Norrington at kara.norrington@utoronto.ca
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is hosting a conference examining in detail the remedies available in constitutional litigation.
Papers and panel discussions will stimulate and develop an ongoing dialogue on the effectiveness of remedies. The goal is to examine the available remedies pursuant to s.24 and s.52 of the Charter as well as remedies for the violation of Aboriginal and treaty rights under the constitution. Key themes include the following.
• Will the promise of the Ward Charter damage claim be realized? Issues related to the quantum of damages in relation to the costs and risks of litigation; the interaction between Charter and tort claims.
• The role of injunctions and declarations: Would/should the Supreme Court affirm supervisory jurisdiction as it did in Doucet Boudreau if it heard the case today; are injunctions necessary or will declarations suffice including in litigation with respect to conditions of confinement and positive rights? What can be learned from comparative experiences?
• Remedies for violations of Aboriginal and treaty rights: What are the remedies for breach of the duty to consult and are they meaningful and effective?
• Remedies for unconstitutional legislation: Are the courts employing the soft remedies of reading down and suspended declarations of invalidity too much?
Opening Plenary Debate: Be it resolved that Judges can rewrite statutes to make them constitutional
Debaters: Prof. Kent Roach and Prof. Hamish Stewart
Moderator: Hon. Justice Robert Sharpe, Ontario Court of Appeal
Keynote Speaker: Professor Sandra Liebenberg
H.F.Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law Department of Public Law Faculty of Law, University of Stellenbosch, SA
Accreditation: This program is worth 5.0 substantive hours and 0 professionalism hours.
Full Program Here

Religious Diversity, Education, and the "Crisis" in State Neutrality
2014-01-29 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Benjamin Berger
Osgoode Hall Law School
Religious Diversity, Education, and the “Crisis” in State Neutrality
Education – and particularly public education – has become a crucible for the relationship between state and religious diversity, a principal site for contemporary debates about the meaning of secularism and the management of religious difference. This is so across a variety of national traditions, and despite wide differences in the historical and “emotional inheritances” surrounding the configuration of law, politics, and religion. Through an exploration of Hannah Arendt’s thought about responsibility and freedom in education, this article works towards a better understanding of why education is such a crucial and fraught field in the modern encounter between religion and law. The article turns to the recent jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada to draw out the implications of these ideas, arriving ultimately at a claim about the nature and limits of the concept of state neutrality.
Professor Benjamin Berger’s areas of teaching and research specialization are criminal and constitutional law and theory, law and religion, and the law of evidence. Prior to joining Osgoode, Professor Berger was an associate professor in the Faculty of Law and held a cross appointment in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Victoria, where he began teaching in 2004. He served as law clerk to the Rt. Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada, and was a Fulbright Scholar at Yale University. He has published broadly in his principal areas of research and his work has appeared in multiple edited collections and in legal and interdisciplinary journals such as: Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence; Law, Culture and the Humanities; McGill Law Journal; Osgoode Hall Law Journal; ICON; and the Journal of Comparative Law. He is on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society and is an associate editor for the Hart Publishing series Constitutional Systems of the World. He is also co-editor of The Grand Experiment: Law and Legal Culture in British Settler Societies, published by UBC Press in October 2008. He received the 2010 Canadian Association of Law Teacher’s Scholarly Paper Award for an article entitled “The Abiding Presence of Conscience: Criminal Justice Against the Law and the Modern Constitutional Imagination.” Professor Berger is active in professional and public education, is involved in public interest advocacy, and has appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada. While at UVic Law, Professor Berger twice received the Terry J. Wuester Teaching Award, and was awarded the First Year Class Teaching Award; he received the Osgoode Hall Law School Teaching Award in 2013.

Event date: Wednesday, January 29, 2014, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Location: Alumni Hall, Victoria College

"Generous" to a Fault? The Supreme Court of Canada's Approach to Section 6(1) of the Charter
2014-01-15 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE SERIES
presents
John Norris
Constitutional Litigator in Residence
David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
“Generous” to a Fault? The Supreme Court of Canada’s Approach to
Section 6(1) of the Charter
John Norris maintains a trial and appellate practice in criminal, constitutional and national security law. He is a Special Advocate for security certificate proceedings, and acts regularly for public interest groups on appeals before the Supreme Court of Canada. John is an adjunct member of the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and is an active contributor to continuing legal education. He is the Asper Centre’s Constitutional-Litigator-in-Residence for 2013. John is a Director of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers. He is an Assistant Editor of the Canadian Rights Reporter, and has authored several scholarly articles. In 2011, John received the Catzman Award for Professionalism and Civility in the practice of law from the Advocates’ Society. John received his LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1991 and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1993.

Event date: Wednesday, January 15, 2014, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Location: Solarium – Falconer Hall, 84 Queen’s Park

Ethical Basis for Excluding Unauthorized Immigrants from the Affordable Care Act
2013-11-21 12:30 - 14:00
Health Law, Ethics & Policy Workshop Series
David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights & International Human Rights Program
present
SPEAKER: Norman Daniels, Harvard School of Public Health
Ethical Basis for Excluding Unauthorized Immigrants from the Affordable Care Act
COMMENTATOR: Audrey Macklin, University of Toronto Faculty of Law
The Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) is intended to close the insurance gap in the US but the single largest group it excludes from coverage is the group of unauthorized (“undocumented” or “illegal”) immigrants, some 12 million people. Should they have been included? After all, in the U.S., even unauthorized immigrant cannot be excluded from emergency room services. Two arguments, one based on reciprocity the other on community membership, support a presumption for inclusion, and the ground for exclusion do not warrant their omission. We examine these arguments after first arguing that some claims of global justice, for example, that national borders should be “open,” fail an important test of feasibility on claims of justice.
Norman Daniels is Mary B. Saltonstall Professor and Professor of Ethics and Population Health at Harvard School of Public Health. Formerly Goldthwaite Professor, Chair of the Tufts Philosophy Department, and Professor of Medical Ethics at Tufts Medical School. He has published over 150 articles in anthologies and journals. His books include Just Health Care (Cambridge, 1985); Am I My Parents’ Keeper? An Essay on Justice Between the Young and the Old (Oxford, 1988); Seeking Fair Treatment: From the AIDS Epidemic to National Health Care Reform, Oxford, 1995); Justice and Justification: Reflective Equilibrium in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 1996); (with Donald Light and Ronald Caplan) Benchmarks of Fairness for Health Care Reform (Oxford, 1996); (with Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, and Dan Wikler) From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice (Cambridge, 2000); (with Bruce Kennedy and Ichiro Kawachi) Is Inequality Bad for Our Health? (Beacon Press, 2000); and (with James Sabin) Setting Limits Fairly: Can We Learn to Share Medical Resources? (Oxford, 2002; 2nd edition 2008). His Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly (CUP, 2008) is a sequel to Just Health Care and integrates his work into a comprehensive theory of justice for health.

Event date: Thursday, November 21, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Location: Alumni Hall, Victoria College

Asper Centre's Fifth Anniversary Symposium
2013-11-08 13:00 - 17:00
Event date: Friday, November 08, 2013, from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Location: Victoria Chapel, Victoria College, University of Toronto
The Asper Centre will celebrate 5 years of accomplishments with 2 panel discussions that explore the significance of the cases in which the Centre has intervened, followed by a reception.
PROGRAM
1:00 – 1:15 p.m. Why We Do the Things We Do
Executive Director, Cheryl Milne will discuss how and why the Centre has chosen the cases it has.
1:15- 2:45 Looking Forward to the Future of Charter Litigation
Panelists will look at the impact that such cases as Canada v Downtown Eastside Sex Workers United Against Violence, Caron v Alberta and others, will have in shaping future litigation. Panelists will include Joseph Arvay QC, Michal Fairburn and Fay Faraday.
2:45 – 4:15 Looking Back on the Last Five Years of Constitutional Remedies
Panelists John Norris, current Constitutional Litigator in Residence, Christopher Bredt, and Professor Kent Roach will reflect on the cases that in which the Asper Centre has participated including Prime Minister of Canada v Khadr, Vancouver (City of) v Ward and Conway v The Queen.
4:15 Keynote: Nathalie Des Rosiers, Dean of University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, Common Law Section, and former General Counsel to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
Reception to follow with Dean Mayo Moran and David Asper.

The Indigenous as Alien
2013-11-01 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies &
Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism
present
Leti Volpp
UC Berkeley School of Law
The Indigenous as Alien
Immigration law, as it is taught, studied, and researched in the United States, imagines away the fact of preexisting indigenous populations. To show how this takes place, this Essay examines the way immigration law narrates space, time, and membership. But despite this disappearance from the field, Indians have figured in U.S. immigration law, and thus, the Essay describes the neglected legal history of the treatment of American Indians under U.S. immigration and citizenship law. The paper then returns to explain why Indians have disappeared from U.S. immigration law through an investigation of the relationship between We the People, the “settler contract,” and the “nation of immigrants.”
Leti Volpp is the Robert D. and Leslie Kay Raven Professor of Law in Access to Justice at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where she teaches courses on immigration and citizenship. Her most recent publications include “Imaginings of Space in Immigration Law,” in Law, Culture and the Humanities (2012), the edited symposium issue “Denaturalizing Citizenship: A Symposium on Linda Bosniak’s The Citizen and the Alien and Ayelet Shachar’s The Birthright Lottery,” in Issues in Legal Scholarship (2011), and “Framing Cultural Difference: Immigrant Women and Discourses of Tradition,” in Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies(2011). Forthcoming work includes “Civility and the Alien,” in Civility, Legality and the Limits of Justice (Austin Sarat, ed., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

Event date: Friday, November 01, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Location: Room 108N, North House, Munk School of Global Affairs, 1 Devonshire Place

Deadline: Call for Papers - September 30, 2013
2013-09-30
Constitutional Remedies: Are They Effective and Meaningful?
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, St. George Campus – February 28, 2014
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference examining in detail the remedies available in constitutional litigation.
The Centre invites papers that stimulate and develop an ongoing dialogue on the effectiveness of remedies. The goal is to thoroughly examine the available remedies pursuant to s.24 and s.52 of the Charter as well as remedies for the violation of Aboriginal and treaty rights under the constitution. Key themes include the following.
· Will the promise of the Ward Charter damage claim be realized? Issues related to the quantum of damages in relation to the costs and risks of litigation; the interaction between Charter and tort claims and the role of Charter damages and class actions.
· The role of injunctions and declarations: Would/should the Supreme Court affirm supervisory jurisdiction as it did in Doucet Boudreau if it heard the case today; are injunctions necessary or will declarations suffice including in litigation with respect to conditions of confinement and positive rights? What can be learned from comparative experiences?
· Remedies for violations of Aboriginal and treaty rights: What are the remedies for breach of the duty to consult and are they meaningful and effective?
· Remedies for unconstitutional legislation: Are the courts employing the soft remedies of reading down and suspended declarations of invalidity too much?
Other conference themes may include issues such as the evidence necessary to justify a particular remedy; remedies in the criminal law context; the remedial role of costs awards; interlocutory injunctions in the constitutional context; and jurisdiction to award Charter remedies.
The papers will be utilized as the central themes on various panels across the one day conference and selected conference papers will be considered for publication as part of a special issue of the National Journal of Constitutional Law. Authors of papers chosen for presentation will be notified by October 31, 2013. Final (for the conference) papers are due by January 31, 2014.
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is a centre within the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law devoted to advocacy, research and education in the areas of constitutional rights in Canada.
For those interested in participating, please send an abstract (max: 250 words) of your intended paper with a 1-2 paragraph biography to: Cheryl Milne at cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca
Deadline for Submissions: September 30, 2013

Deadline: Working Group Proposals
2013-07-31
UofT law students who wish to submit proposals to lead voluntary Working Groups for the 2013-2014 year, must complete the proposals and submit them by 5:00 p.m. on July 31, 2013.

Clinic Application Deadline
2013-07-03
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: DAVID ASPER CENTRE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (LAW391H1F) FALL 2013
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: HALF TERM CLINIC – WINTER 2014
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students wishing to apply for these courses must email a 1-2 page statement of interest to Cheryl Milne, cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca by July 3, 2013. Please indicate the following:

(a) previous upper-year courses in constitutional law or human rights law or experience that you consider to be equivalent (note pre/co-requisite for half-term clinic);
(b) indicators of academic, analytical and research and writing ability, which may include grades in related classes;
(c) any experience in human rights or constitutional issues;
(d) any experience with lawyering or advocacy;
(e) why you wish to enroll in the Clinic.
Successful applicants will be notified of admission in time for course registration prior to July 10, 2013.

Exit, Voice, and Disloyalty
2013-03-14 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
Professor Heather Gerkin
Yale Law School
Abstract: Much of constitutional theory is preoccupied with a single question: what does a democracy owe its minorities? And most of the answers to this question fit naturally into the two categories Hirschman made famous: voice and exit. On both the rights side and structural side of constitutional theory, scholars worry about providing minorities with an adequate level of influence. And the solutions they propose almost inevitably offer minorities a chance at voice or exit, as if no other options existed. Professor Gerken will argue that exit and voice are not the only options available to a minority group seeking influence. That’s because much of the nation’s administrative structure looks more like Tocqueville’s democracy than Weber’s bureaucracy. In our highly decentralized and partially politicized system, minorities can wield influence over national policy by virtue of the fact that they routinely administer it. As policymaking insiders, minorities can resist federal policy from within rather than challenge it from without. Professor Gerken will explore the implications of this institutional fact and explain why constitutional theory has long neglected this important form of minority power.
Heather Gerken is the J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law at Yale Law School where she specializes in election law, constitutional law, and civil procedure. Professor Gerken is one of the country’s leading experts on voting rights and election law, the role of groups in the democratic process, and the relationship between diversity and democracy. A native of Massachusetts, Professor Gerken graduated from Princeton University, where she received her A.B. degree summa cum laude in 1991, and from the University of Michigan Law School, where she received her J.D. summa cum laude in 1994. She then served as a law clerk for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice David H. Souter of the United States Supreme Court, before entering private practice in Washington, D.C. In 2000 Professor Gerken became an assistant professor at Harvard Law School, where she was granted tenure and won the Sachs-Freund teaching award. She joined the Yale faculty in 2006. She is currently working on a book on the trans-substantive concept of “second-order diversity” in American public law.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information and a copy of the draft paper, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca
Event date: Thursday, March 14, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLA, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Respecting Democratic Constitutional Change
2013-03-04 12:30 - 14:00
Craig Scott

Member of Parliament for Toronto-Danforth

This lecture will discuss the structure and philosophy of the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to the dynamics of constitutional change, including the stages necessary to move from the democratic expression of a desire for change to lawful amendment of the Constitution. Scott will discuss his legislative proposal, An Act Respecting Democratic Constitutional Change recently tabled as a bill in the House of Commons.
Craig Scott is MP for Toronto-Danforth (NDP), having been elected in March 2012 in a by-election called following the passing of Jack Layton. He is the Official Opposition Critic for Democratic and Parliamentary Reform. Prior to being elected, he was on faculty at Osgoode Hall Law School (2000-2012) and University of Toronto Faculty of Law (1989-2000).
Craig Scott, MP, Toronto-Danforth, 741 Broadview Ave, Suite 304, Toronto, ON M4K 3Y3 Tel: 4164058914; 914, Confederation Bldg, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6, Tel: 6139929381.
A light lunch will be served.
Read the Bill Here
For more workshop information, please contact kara.norrington@utoronto.ca

Event date: Monday, March 04, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLA, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

2013 Morris A Gross Memorial Lecture
2013-02-27 16:00 - 17:30
The Honourable Lynn Smith
The Quest for a Charter Equality Test: Has the Longest Way Round Been the Shortest Way Home?
Watch the webcast here.
Event date: Wednesday, February 27, 2013, from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Location: Rowell Room, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Lynn Smith, B.A. (University of Calgary), LL.B. (University of British Columbia), LL.D. (Hon.) (Simon Fraser University) was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1998. She served as a Justice of that Court until her retirement in September 2012. Prior to her appointment as a judge, she practised law at Shrum, Liddle and Hebenton (now McCarthy Tetrault), specializing in civil litigation. She taught law at the University of British Columbia 1981-97 in areas including Constitutional Law, Evidence, Civil Litigation, and Real Property. She has published books and articles in the fields of Charter equality rights, civil litigation and evidence, human rights, administrative law, and women’s equality. She was Dean of the U.B.C. Law Faculty 1991-97. In 2005-06, Lynn Smith was Executive Director of the National Judicial Institute, on secondment from the Court. She is a Judicial Associate of the National Judicial Institute and serves on the faculty of the Charter and Evidence Workshops as well as the New Federally-Appointed Judges Program. She has been involved in international judicial education exchanges with China, Scotland, Ghana and Viet Nam. During a Judicial Study Leave in 2009-10, she researched credibility assessment, examining the psychological and social science literature as well as the law. She published a paper on that topic, and prepared a program on credibility assessment used in National Judicial Institute seminars. Lynn Smith was the Chair of the B.C. Supreme Court Law Clerks Committee and of the Committee on Communications Technology, whose report was adopted by the Court in May, 2012. Commencing in January, 2013, she is teaching a seminar on Constitutional Litigation at the U.B.C. Faculty of Law. She is married to Jon Sigurdson, who is a Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. They have two daughters, Elin Sigurdson and Krista Sigurdson.
The Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture was established in memory of the late Morris A. Gross by the law firm Minden Gross LLP and by members of his family, friends and professional associates. The intention of the lectureship is to, every two years, bring to the Faculty of Law a distinguished scholar or a member of the practising bar or bench for discussion with the student body and Faculty, and to deliver the bi-annual Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture.
This event is being co-sponsored by the JOHN AND MARY YAREMKO FUND FOR MULTICULTURALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
For more information, contact Cheryl Milne cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca

Social and Economic Rights - A South African Perspective
2013-02-14 12:30 - 14:00
Zak Yacoob
Former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
Event date: Thursday, February 14, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room B, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Judge Yacoob has been a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He is married to Anu. The couple have two children. He has been blind for almost all his life. Judge Yacoob became a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in February 1998 and retired from active service on 31 January 2013. Justice Yacoob was appointed Acting Deputy Chief Justice from 1 February 2012 to 31 May 2012. He wrote the Court’s decision in the Grootboom case involving housing rights under the South African constitution.
He attended a special school and attained a law degree at an apartheid university for Indians. In May 2010 he received an LLD honoris causa from the University of Fort Hare, South Africa. The same degree was conferred upon him by the University of KwaZulu-Natal in April 2011.
Judge Yacoob practised as an advocate for 25 years. Much of this was concerned with using the law in the struggle against apartheid and for democracy. He was a member of the underground of the African National Congress and other community organisations. He was a member of the Independent Electoral Commission and of the Independent Panel of Experts that advised the National Assembly on the drafting of the South African Constitution. Judge Yacoob has attended dozens of international conferences and workshops on topics as varied as blindness, children and democracy.
Link to the Grootboom decision.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information and a copy of the Grootboom decision please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

R v Morgentaler: Reflections After 25 Years
2013-01-29 17:30 - 19:30
Panel Discussion
On January 28, 1988, 25 years ago, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law using the still new Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The legal battle was long, dramatic and groundbreaking – including a police raid on a clinic, novel constitutional evidence and arguments, an extraordinary criminal jury trial, and an acquittal overturned by the Court of Appeal, followed by a week-long hearing and divided decision at the Supreme Court level. Today, the case remains one of the most significant decisions in Canadian law. This panel provides a unique opportunity to hear from participants in the case as they reflect on the historic events and the continued significance of the case today.
Panelists: Dr. Robert Scott – Appellant and Co-Accused
Morris Manning, QC – Counsel for the Appellants
Kirk Makin – Justice Reporter with the Globe and Mail
Lorraine Weinrib – Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Carolyn Egan – Expert witness at trial
(Others to be confirmed)
Moderators: Paul Schabas – Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP and co-counsel for the Appellant
Cheryl Milne – Executive Director, David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
Read more about this event here.
Listen to an excerpt of the event from CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE RECORDING OF THE EVENT

Event date: Tuesday, January 29, 2013, from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Location: Bennett Lecture Hall, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Common Good, Public Reason and Constitutional Law
2013-01-24 12:30 - 14:00
Wojciech Sadurski, University of Sydney
The most feasible conception of the common good is one that refers to the legitimate motives for proposing and enacting collective authoritative decisions, which can be applied to, and complied with by, those who do not necessarily agree with the substantive merits of those decisions. Concretization of such a conception is found in the idea of public reason, elaborated upon with some sophistication by political liberals, most influentially by John Rawls. When properly modified in response to its critics (notably Ronald Dworkin), this idea resonates with a popular constitutional doctrine which calls for invalidation of laws tainted by wrong (i.e. unconstitutional) motives; thus the concept of public reason may be a useful tool in identifying which motives should be found unconstitutional. As scrutiny reliant upon the second-guessing of actual legislative motives is potentially unworkable, what is needed is an “objectified” approach to the motives. This can be detected through reasonableness analysis, perhaps supported by the device of proportionality. But there are limits to the arbitrary “manufacturing” of reasons, and the test of public reason is of value not only in the scrutiny of laws already enacted, but also as an appeal to lawmakers that only some types of arguments should be used in public discourse. While at first blush it may be seen as a prescription for hypocrisy, in fact the concept of public reason may play an important therapeutic and reflexive role: it may teach us to use only such arguments in public discourse which are respectful of fellow citizens who may disagree due to varying ideologies, religions and philosophical outlooks.
Event date: Thursday, January 24, 2013, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Solarium, Falconer Hall, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Wojciech Sadurski is Challis Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney and Professor of the Centre for Europe at Warsaw University. He has taught at several institutions around the world, such as Cornell Law School and Cardozo Law School in the United States, and at universities across Europe: in Trento, Paris and Warsaw. He was Professor of Legal Theory and Philosophy of Law at the European University Institute in Florence from 1999-2009, serving as Head of Department of the Law at the EUI in 2003-2006. Specialising in philosophy of law, political theory, constitutional theory and comparative constitutional law, his most recent books include: Rights Before Courts: A Study of Constitutional Courts in Postcommunist States of Central and Eastern Europe (Springer, 2005), Equality and Legitimacy (Oxford University Press, 2008) and Constitutionalism and the Enlargement of Europe (Oxford University Press, 2012). A member of a number of governing and programme bodies of think tanks and NGOs dealing with human rights and democracy promotion, he is currently Chairman of Academic Advisory Board of the Community of Democracies. A full profile and list of publications is available at http://sydney.edu.au/law/about/staff/WojciechSadurski/index.shtml.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information and a copy of the draft paper, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

Judging Social Rights
2013-01-10 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
and the
International Human Rights Program
present
Jeff King, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University College, London
Thursday, January 10, 2013
12:30 – 2:00
Room FLC, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law
78 Queen’s Park
Jeff King is a distinguished visitor this year at the Faculty of Law, teaching an intensive course on social rights. His discussion will focus on some of the central themes of his book, Judging Social Rights (Cambridge Studies in Constitutional Law). His book offers an extended argument about why abstract social rights to housing, education, health care, and social security should be part of constitutions. He argues that judges should be able to interpret and enforce social rights, including by striking down legislation, but should act incrementally, taking small steps to expand the coverage of existing rules and principles in a controlled fashion.
Jeff King, BA Hons in Phil (Ottawa) 1996, LLB/BCL (McGill) 2002, MSt (Oxford) 2006, DPhil (Oxford) 2009, is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Laws University College London, where he teaches public law, human rights, and legal and constitutional theory. He is Co-Editor of the journal Current Legal Problems. Previously, he was a Fellow and Tutor in law at Balliol College, and CUF Lecturer for the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford (2008-2011), a Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford (2008-2010), a Research Fellow and Tutor in public law at Keble College, Oxford (2007-08), and an attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York City (2003-04). His research and teaching broadly examines doctrinal, theoretical and empirical aspects of comparative public law. He has published articles on the justiciability of resource allocation, judicial restraint, complexity in adjudication, the function of constitutions, the value of legal accountability, proportionality in administrative law, odious debt in international law, and a monograph setting out the case for constitutional social rights and a theory of adjudication in respect of them.
For more workshop information and a copy of the draft paper, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

"Riffing on the Federalist"
2012-11-28 16:00 - 17:30
Sanford Levinson
W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair
Professor of Government, School of Law
University of Texas at Austin
Event date: Wednesday, November 28, 2012, from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Location: Rowell Room, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Abstract: The Federalist is, without a doubt, the best-known, most widely-read and –analyzed extended work of American political thought. (The adjective is important in order to dispose of any claims made in behalf of the Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address.) There are, therefore, a host of books and lengthy articles that devote themselves to trying to figure out the ultimate meaning of one or another particularly canonical essay among the 85 separate essays that comprise The Federalist. Among the most canonical are Federalist 10, famous for its theory of “factions,” and 78, in which Hamilton defends judicial review. Other books try to discern a single unified theory of government that links together James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay in their guise as “Publius,” the public-spirited proponent of the Constitution writing to his fellow Americans and, especially, delegates to the New York ratification convention, which was, rightly, expected to be extremely close with regard to acceptance or rejection of the document. Both of these literatures are important and worth study, especially by scholars of late-18th century American thought. This book, however, is not designed to compete with them. Instead, what follows are 85 short essays—I am tempted to describe them as “riffs”—on each of the separate contributions by “Publius.” Each of this “riffs” attempts to show how the particular essay is relevant, often in surprising ways, to contemporary political discussion. The aim is not in the least to use the Federalist to offer ways of “interpreting” the United States Constitution, but, rather, to understand each essay as a defense of the institutions established by the Constitution and to put those defenses within the context of the political thought of the 18th century and to ask to what degree we accept or reject those guiding assumptions.
The Roundtable will be followed by a reception in the Faculty Common Room.
This event is co-sponsored with the Canada Research Chair in Constitutionalism, Democracy and Development.

Social Science Evidence in Charter Litigation
2012-11-09 08:30 - 2012-11-12 17:00
Developments in Thirty Years of Fact Finding
What have we learned? What could we do better?
Event date: Friday, November 09, 2012, from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM
Location: Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Opening Plenary Panel: The Challenges for Judges
Justice Robert Sharpe (Ontario Court of Appeal); Justice Susan Himel (Ontario Superior Court of Justice – Bedford v Canada); Justice Lynn Smith (Supreme Court of British Columbia – Carter v Canada)
Workshop topics include: a theory of constitutional facts; framework for reliability analysis; judging social science evidence—a feminist perspective; linking social science evidence with individual testimony; use of social science in specific cases such as Polygamy Reference, Gosselin, R v Bryan, Canada v PHS Community Services (Insite case); and more …
PROGRAM

Of Irregular Votes and Robocalls: Resolving Disputed Elections in Canada and New Zealand
2012-10-24 12:30 - 14:00
Andrew Geddis, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Otago
Abstract: This paper begins with the broader question of how a constitutional order based upon a liberal-democratic commitment to letting the people choose their lawmakers ought to respond to allegations of flaws in its election process. After all, any large-scale human undertaking is bound to fall short of perfect implementation, so why do such claims matter so much? And if such claims do matter so much, what are the various issues that need to be resolved in order that they may be properly confronted and settled? From this general discussion, the paper then turns to examine how these issues are addressed in two nations that enjoy similar historical, cultural and constitutional traditions: Canada and New Zealand. The point of this comparison is not to illustrate the breadth of all possible responses to the challenge that a disputed election poses to a liberal democratic constitutional order, but rather to demonstrate that even relatively small differences in legal doctrine can have important real-world consequences. Furthermore, it is argued that such differences as can be discerned between the two nations are attributable to the balance each has struck between the perceived need for ensuring procedural correctness and bringing closure to the election process so as to permit elected representatives to carry out their lawmaking functions. Insofar as both of these goals emerges from the model of liberal democratic constitutionalism itself, each jurisdiction’s choices illustrate that any legal response to the challenge of disputed elections is not necessarily “required” but rather the result of a conscious preference for one over the other.
Andrew Geddis completed his undergraduate work at the University of Otago, studying law and political studies. In 1996 he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard Law School, where he completed his LLM degree. In 2000 he returned to Otago to take up a lecturing position. He was appointed an Associate Professor in 2007, a Professor in 2011.
A light lunch will be served.
For more information and a copy of the draft paper contact Nadia Gulezko: n.gulezko@utoronto.ca
Event date: Wednesday, October 24, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

The Disallegiant Heart: Constitutional Citizenship and the History of Marital Denaturalization
2012-10-15 12:30 - 14:00
Helen Irving, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney
Abstract: In this paper, I invite a reconceptualization of constitutional (as distinct from political) citizenship, by examining the legal practice, virtually universal between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, of the denaturalization of citizen women who married alien men. This practice, which emerged as a by-product of the post-revolutionary constitutional state and the ‘new Westphalian’ international order, reveals two core paradigms: allegiance and protection. Our modern idea of citizenship, I argue, is still embedded in the first, to the detriment of the second. Our concept of citizenship, and the legal regimes that accompany it, reflect a distinction between the allegiant and the disallegiant citizen, which mirrors the injurious distinction upon which marital denaturalization rested.
A light lunch will be served.
Event date: Tuesday, October 16, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Solarium, Falconer Hall, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Contact Nadia Gulezko for information and a copy of the paper: n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

Counsel and expert witness reflect on Carter v Canada
2012-09-25 12:30 - 14:00
Prof. Wayne Sumner (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Toronto, expert witness on ethics in the Carter case) and Joseph Arvay, Q.C. (counsel for the plaintiffs in Carter and leading constitutional litigator) will reflect on the landmark British Columbia Supreme Court decision, Carter v Canada 2012 BCSC 886.
Joseph J. Arvay, QC holds law degrees from the University of Western Ontario Law School and Harvard Law School. He is called to the Bars of both British Columbia and the Yukon. Mr. Arvay has a busy civil litigation practice but with an emphasis on constitutional and administrative law matters. He has been involved in many constitutional cases of importance in British Columbia and elsewhere in Canada. Mr. Arvay has been involved in a number of aboriginal-rights litigation cases and is also counsel on medical malpractice cases, class actions, commercial litigation and defamation.Mr. Arvay has been counsel on a number of landmark constitutional law cases including Egan v Canada, The Little Sisters litigation, Health Services, Canada v PHS Community Services amongst many others. He is counsel on the Carter case.
Wayne Sumner is University Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He is the author of five books: Abortion and Moral Theory (1981); The Moral Foundation of Rights (1987); Welfare, Ethics, and Happiness (1996); The Hateful and the Obscene: Studies in the Limits of Free Expression (2004); and Assisted Death: A Study in Ethics and Law (2011). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and recipient of the 2009 Molson Prize in Social Sciences and Humanities from the Canada Council for the Arts. He was qualified as an expert witness in the case before the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
A light lunch will be served.
Event date: Tuesday, September 25, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

The Rule of Law as a Constitutional Essential
2012-09-19 12:30 - 14:00
Dr. Pavlos Eleftheriadis (University Lecturer & Fellow in Law, University of Oxford)

Abstract: The United Kingdom constitution endorses both parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law as constitutional principles of the highest rank. The relations between the two have been a source of great puzzles, legal and philosophical. In this paper Professor Eleftheriadis attempts to clarify some aspects of their relationship. He will argue that the rule of law is the more fundamental principle. This is because of its particular role in any theory of law. Properly understood, the value of the rule of law is not one value among many competing values. Its value is deeper because it serves as a foundation for any ordering of our collective life. In this sense it is a constitutional essential in the sense used by Rawls. Without it, our public scheme of cooperation (or in the language of classical political philosophy the “civil condition”) is either impossible or, whenever possible, illegitimate. In a well governed society the powers of parliament, courts and the government are best understood under the principle of the rule of law, where the idea of sovereignty plays only a small part.
A light lunch will be served.
Event date: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLA, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca
