The Asper Centre working groups aim to provide U of T students with an opportunity to conduct legal research and assist in advocacy on Canadian constitutional rights issues (often in partnership with an external organization). The Asper Centre requires all potential working groups (including existing working groups) to submit a written proposal for consideration by ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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, ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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. ... Read More

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, ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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:   ... Read More

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.  

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 ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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. ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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) ... Read More

  Constitutional Roundtable presents Richard Stacey, Faculty of Law University of Toronto 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. Thursday, February 5, 2015 Room 101, Victoria College Constitutional Law in the Absence of Constitution: Power in the Revolutionary Interregnum In early February 2011, the Egyptian armed forces assumed executive control of Egypt and suspended the 1971 Constitution. A ... Read More

Constitutional Roundtable presents Cristina Rodriguez, Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at 
Yale Law School 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Location: Victoria College, Room VC 115 The Power to Enforce the Law: Presidential Power and American Immigration Policy In November 2014, President Obama announced his intention to dramatically reshape immigration law through ... Read More

Constitutional Roundtable presents Raj Anand Constitutional Litigator in Residence with the Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. Wednesday, February 03, 2016 Victoria College, Room 206 Topic: Subsection 15(2) of the Charter and its Disconnection with Substantive Equality Raj Anand is a partner and an arbitrator and mediator with WeirFoulds LLP. His practice ... Read More

Judicial Courage and Restraint in Canadian Constitutional History 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 ... Read More

See EVENT POSTER here. On September 10, 2018 Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that Premier Doug Ford's Bill 5 - the so-called Better Local Government Act - to reduce Toronto's city council from 47 wards to 25, breached s. 2(b) of the Charter and was therefore unconstitutional. Shortly thereafter Premier Ford announced that not only was his government going ... Read More

On Tuesday, February 5, 2019, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Professor Kent Roach presented a Constitutional Roundtable titled "Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice: The Gerald Stanley/Colten Boushie Case." In this Constitutional Roundtable, Gerald Stanley's trial for the killing of Colten Boushie, a 22 year old Cree man, will be examined in its broader historical, political ... Read More

The Asper Centre Indigenous Rights student working group is pleased to present a lunchtime panel discussion on Thursday March 21, 2019 at 12h30. Brittany Beaver and Ken Hill are Haudenosaunee parents to a ten-year-old son. She is a student; he co-founded a successful cigarette company and earns millions of dollars each year. Their relationship ended ... Read More

For current JD students at UTLaw only JD students in all years can volunteer with one of the Asper Centre student working groups, or IHRP student working groups that are led by upper year law students. Working groups draft policy briefs, organize workshops, and conduct research on emerging constitutional/charter rights issues and international human rights topics. This year, ... Read More

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights & the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society were pleased to co-present  COVID-19 Contact Tracing and the Canadian Constitution   a FREE WEBINAR on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:00-1:30pm Contact tracing apps play an important role alongside human tracing in our public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to ensure that contact tracing apps infringe our Constitutional rights as little as possible, ... Read More

Dear U of T Law JD students, Please attend this important lunchtime Information session on September 13, 2022 to find out about the volunteer opportunities available this year at the Asper Centre and the IHRP. Lunch will be provided! Please check our student working group page to learn more about the public interest programs' joint ... Read More

Forty years ago, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was adopted with the signing of the Proclamation of the Constitution Act, 1982.  The Charter protects the rights and freedoms of all Canadians and is built on the shared values of equality, justice and freedom. This year also marks the 40th anniversary of Section 35 of the Constitution Act, ... Read More