PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY IN CRISIS: The Dilemmas, Choices and Future of Parliamentary Government in Canada Edited by Lorne Sossin and Peter Russell, published by University of Toronto Press Faculty of Law, Flavelle House, Rowell Room Our distinguished panelists discussed the future of Canada’s democracy: lessons learned and where to we go from here. This is the ... Read More

Monday, June 15, 2009, at 4:00 PM Deadline for upper year students to submit their application for the fall 2009 term of the Asper Centre Clinical Legal Education Course.

U. of T. law students are invited to attend an information session on the various working groups of the Asper Centre. Volunteers are needed to participate in the following groups over the course of the school year: • Emerging Constitutional Issues • The Charter and Canadian Citizens Abroad • The Internet Surveillance Working Group • ... Read More

Grant, Harrison, Shepherd & Suberu: The Supreme Court Decisions of the Summer of 2009 Watch the Webcast On July 17, 2009, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its long awaited decisions in R. v. Grant, R. v. Harrison, R. v. Shepherd and R. v. Suberu clarifying the law in respect of the exclusion of ... Read More

David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights and the International Human Rights Program Present Michael Fordham, QC Human Rights at the UK Supreme Court   A light lunch will be served. Michael Fordham QC is a leading public law and human rights barrister in London (www.blackstonechambers.com). His awards have included Human Rights Lawyer of the Year ... Read More

Students and Faculty are welcome to come and watch the live webcast of the argument at the Supreme Court of Canada in Prime Minister of Canada, et al. v. Omar Khadr. The Asper Centre and the International Human Rights Program (IHRP) have been granted standing in the case as interveners with Human Rights Watch. Professor ... Read More

What duties does the Canadian government owe to Canadian citizens when they are outside of the country? Is there such a thing as a legal duty to protect citizens from harm, or seek their repatriation when they have suffered harm? What are the rules, post Hape and Khadr, governing the extraterritorial application of the Charter, ... Read More

Albie Sachs: The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law (Oxford University Press, 2009) Friday, January 15, 2010 3:00 – 4:00 (to be followed by a reception) Faculty of Law, Flavelle House, Room FLB   Should a judge be an instrument of pure, detached reason, or a person imbued with human empathy? Albie Sachs, appointed by ... Read More

The Supreme Court of Canada released its unanimous decision in Prime Minister of Canada et al. v. Omar Khadr on Friday, January 29, 2010. It declared that the Canadian government is violating Omar Khadr's right to life, liberty and security under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court denounced the use of torture in ... Read More

As rapidly advancing communication technology transforms so many aspects of human interaction it is crucial for public safety that investigative powers remain relevant to the rapidly evolving methods of crime. However, these methods must not too broadly infringe on the rights and liberties of Canadian Citizens. In 2009, two bills, C- 46 and C-47, were ... Read More

Faculty of Law, University of Toronto Constitutional Roundtable presents James Hathaway, University of Michigan Law School Audrey Macklin, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Lorne Waldman, Lorne Waldman and Associates Is None Still Too Many? Asylum Seekers on Boats, Then and Now, Here and There 12:30 – 2:00 Tuesday, October 5, 2010 Classroom C – ... Read More

Friday, November 6th, 2010 Sign in and Registration: 8:30 a.m. Public interest litigation can have a significant impact on public policy in Canada. Although Charter and other public interest litigation is most often commenced by individual claimants who are challenging laws that affect them individually, the test case litigant is often supported or opposed by ... Read More

Barry Friedman New York University Law School One of the longstanding, beguiling questions among scholars in several disciplines is how judicial power gains traction. Why do those setting up governments create an independent judiciary, why or how does judicial review get a foothold, and most important, what is the fount of judiciall supremacy? Theories abound, ... Read More

Is Coalition Government in Britain here to stay? Professor Robert Hazell University College London   Thursday, February 3, 2011 4:00-5:30 p.m. Bennett Lecture Hall, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law   Prof Robert Hazell is Director of the Constitution Unit at University College London, the UK’s leading research centre on constitutional reform. He was originally a ... Read More

Constitutional Roundtable presents The Canadian Judicial Appointment Process: Where Are We? Where Are We Going? Peter H. Russell, University Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto Jacob Ziegel, University of Toronto Faculty of Law 12:30 – 2:00 Thursday, September 15, 2011 Classroom A – Flavelle House 78 Queen’s Park Peter H. Russell has published widely in the ... Read More

The British Columbia Supreme Court released its decision in the Ref. Re. S.293 of the Criminal Code of Canada (Polygamy Reference) on November 23rd. With a length of over 280 pages, the case provides the most comprehensive judical record on the subject of polygamy ever produced. Legal arguments were presented by the Attorney General of ... Read More

On September 20th, 2011, federal justice minister Rob Nicholson tabled Bill C-10, the Safe Streets and Communities Act. Forty five sitting days later, on December 5th, the bill passed in the House of Commons. The bill includes several reforms in our criminal justice system, including new mandatory minimum sentences and the elimination of conditional sentences ... Read More

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 ... 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

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

  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

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