David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

Parliamentary Democracy Book Launch
2009-04-21 04:30 - 18:00 (America/Toronto)
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 third in our series on the topic and celebrated the book that came out of our December 5th event on the Governor General’s decision to prorogue Parliament. The discussion was followed by a wine and cheese reception to celebrate the publication and the accomplishments of the Asper Centre in its first year. Our panelists included:
Peter Hogg is the Scholar in Residence of the law firm Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP (Blakes). He is professor emeritus at the Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. Peter is the leading constitutional law scholar in Canada. He is the author of the only comprehensive treatise, namely, Constitutional Law of Canada.
Michael Valpy is an award-winning Canadian journalist and author. He writes for the Globe and Mail newspaper where he made his reputation on both political and human interest stories. Through a long career at the Globe, he has been a reporter, Ottawa-based national political columnist, member of the editorial board, deputy managing editor, Africa-based correspondent during the last years of apartheid, and religious affairs columnist.
David Cameron is a Professor of Political Science at U of T, and is renowned for his significant career in public service at both federal and provincial levels of government. Professor Cameron’s interests include Canadian government and politics, questions of federalism and Quebec nationalism, ethnocultural relations, and the politics and constitution-making of emerging federal countries such as Sri Lanka and Iraq.
Barbara Cameron is an Associate Professor of Political Science at York University where she teaches courses on public policy and Canadian government at the graduate and undergraduate levels. Her current research focuses on the challenges of democratic accountability in the context of Canada’s system of federalism and the growing power of the executive branch of government. In addition to her academic publications, she works with non-governmental organizations on public policy issues, including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada.
Sujit Choudhry (moderator) holds the Scholl Chair and is Associate Dean (First Year Program) at the U of T. He is cross-appointed to the Department of Political Science, the School of Public Policy and Governance, and the Department of Health Management, Policy and Evaluation. He is a Senior Fellow of Massey College, and a Member of the University of Toronto Centre for Ethics and Joint Centre for Bioethics.
With an introduction and concluding remarks from the editors:
Lorne Sossin is a Professor at the U of T’s Faculty of Law. His teaching interests span administrative law, public administration, professional regulation, civil litigation, ethics and professionalism, and legal process. He was the recipient of the Mewett Teaching Award in 2003 and 2004.
Peter Russell is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto. He has published widely in academic journals and intervened in many instances of constitutional crisis and development. He is the author of several books on the constitution, democracy and the judiciary, including Two Cheers for Minority Government: The Evolution of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy.

(2009)

Clinical Course Deadline
2009-06-15
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.

Student Working Groups Information Session
2009-06-22 12:30 - 14:00
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
• Legal Aid Boycott
(Pizza lunch will be provided.)
Event date: Tuesday, September 22, 2009, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Bennett Lecture Hall

Workshop on Exclusion of Evidence Cases
2009-09-30 12:30 - 14:00
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 evidence under s.24(2) of the Charter. Their decisions have been described as an appropriate balancing between liberty interests and the administration of justice, a clear message to police of the constitutional limits placed on their powers, and an imaginative redrafting of the Stillman test, but with an impact that might be hard to predict. Join our distinguished panel who will summarize, debate and discuss the ramifications of the decisions from many perspectives.
Professor Hamish Stewart is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, where he has taught criminal law, evidence, and several other subjects since 1993. Before attending law school, he studied economics, receiving his B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1983 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1989, and he taught for a year in the economics department at Williams College in Massachusetts. He received his LL.B. degree from the University of Toronto in 1992, clerked at the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1992-93, and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1998. From 1998 to 2007, he was an Associate Editor of the Canadian Criminal Cases and the Dominion Law Reports. Professor Stewart is the principal author of Sexual Offences in Canadian Law (Canada Law Book, 2004), the General Editor of Evidence: A Canadian Casebook, 2d ed. (Emond Montgomery, 2006), and the author of more than 40 scholarly papers in criminal law, evidence, legal theory, and economics.
Professor Martha Shaffer joined the Faculty of Law in 1990, and is now an associate professor. She holds law degrees from Harvard and Toronto, as well as an undergraduate degree from Harvard. She served as Law Clerk to the Supreme Court of Canada for Chief Justice Brian Dickson, before becoming the Boulton Junior Fellow at the Faculty of Law, McGill University. Professor Shaffer’s principal research and teaching interests concentrate on criminal law, family law and equality issues.
Jonathan Dawe was counsel for the Appellant in R. v. Grant and the Civil Liberties Association in R. v. Harrison. B.Sc.(Hons.), McGill University (1987); LL.B., University of Toronto (1994); LL.M., Yale Law School (1996). Called to the Ontario Bar, 1997, Partner with Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP (Toronto). Clerked for the Rt. Hon. Antonio Lamer, C.J.C. (1994-95). Associate Commission Counsel to the Driskell Inquiry (Manitoba; 2006-07). Practices in the area of criminal and constitutional law, with a special emphasis on criminal appeals. Teaches Criminal Procedure (1999-2004; 2010-) and Advanced Criminal Procedure and Charter Issues (2009-) at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.
Rick Visca was counsel for the Respondent in R. v. Harrison. He graduated from University of Toronto with a degree in Political Science . Studied law at the University of Victoria, and received LLB in 1992. Articles at Holden Day Wilson. Began as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice in 1994. Prosecuted drug, tax, misleading advertising, and other miscellaneous federal legislation offences. Maintains a trial and appellate practice with the now Public Prosecution Service of Canada.
Event date: Wednesday, September 30, 2009, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Bennett Lecture Hall, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Workshop: Human Rights at the UK Supreme Court
2009-11-05 12:30 - 14:00
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 2005, the Bar Pro Bono Award 2006, and Human Rights and Public Law QC of the Year 2008. Mike has appeared in more than 30 cases in the UK’s Supreme Court (formerly known as the House of Lords), including many interventions for non-governmental organizations, beginning with Amnesty International in the Pinochet cases (Pinochet [2000] 1 AC 61; and Pinochet (No.3) [2000] 1 AC 147). Mike led the interventions for JUSTICE in the anti-terrorism control orders cases (MB v SSHD [2007] UKHL 46; JJ v SSHD [2007] UKHL 45; AF v SSHD [2009] UKHL 28) and in the asset-freezing case (A v HM Treasury, pending: the first appeal argued in the new Supreme Court). Mike has also led the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)’s interventions in Fornah v SSHD [2006] UKHL 46 (gender-based persecution) and R v Asfaw [2008] UKHL 31 (refugee penalisation); the intervention by Liberty in YL v Birmingham CC [2007] UKHL 27 (human rights in private care homes); as well as pending interventions for UNHCR (asylum and sexual-orientation) and Bail for Immigration Detainees (immigration detention due process). Mike is author of the Judicial Review Handbook (5th ed., 2008), co-editor of the quarterly journal Judicial Review (since 1996) and College Lecturer in Administrative Law at Hertford College, Oxford.
Michael Fordham will be talking about recent trends in human rights cases before the UK Supreme Court.
Please RSVP to Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca
Event date: Thursday, November 05, 2009, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Solarium, Falconer Hall, Faculty of Law

Prime Minister of Canada et al. v. Omar Khadr
2009-11-13 09:00 - 13:00
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 Audrey Macklin will be our co-counsel with John Norris and Brydie Bethel. Professor Sujit Choudhry is acting as counsel for the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association. Directors Cheryl Milne and Diana Juricevic will be on hand to answer questions about the case.
Coffee and muffins will be served.

Event date: Friday, November 13, 2009, from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Location: Rm FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Workshop: The Charter Rights of Canadian Citizens Abroad
2009-11-24 12:30 - 14:00
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, as well as the impact of international law on those rules? What are the implications of anti-terrorist measures that involve information sharing with governments that may engage in coercive practices on Canadian citizens abroad? This distinguished panel of practitioners and academics will address these complex issues and more.
Paul Champ is the founding partner of Ottawa law firm Champ & Associates. He is a litigation lawyer with a focus on human rights, employment, labour, and public interest law, and has developed a practice in national security law. Paul regularly acts as counsel to organizations such as Amnesty International and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, and his firm is a partner with the International Justice Network. Paul has defended the human rights of detainees in the custody of the Canadian military in Afghanistan, was involved in the Iacobucci Inquiry, and appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada in Canada v. Khadr. He was co-counsel in Abdelrazik v. Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Prof. Audrey Macklin is a professor at the Faculty of Law. She holds law degrees from Yale and Toronto, and a bachelor of science degree from Alberta. She served as law clerk to Mme Justice Bertha Wilson at the Supreme Court of Canada. Prof. Macklin’s teaching areas include criminal law, administrative law, and immigration & refugee law. Her research and writing interests include transnational migration, citizenship, forced migration, feminist and cultural analysis, and human rights. She has published on these subjects in numerous journals and in collections of essays such as The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill and Engendering Forced Migration. Prof. Macklin has been active in the Omar Khadr case and most recently acted as co-counsel for the Asper Centre in Prime Minister of Canada et al. v. Omar Khadr at the Supreme Court.
Prof. Ed Morgan is a professor at the Faculty of Law where he teaches in the fields of international law and constitutional law. He has a B.A. from Northwestern University, an LL.B. from the University of Toronto and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. He has written numerous law journal articles, case comments, and book chapters dealing with international and constitutional law issues. He is a regular contributor to national newspapers on issues of international and constitutional law. Professor Morgan has appeared at all levels of Canadian courts as well as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Decolonization Committee of the United Nations, and has provided expert evidence on international law to numerous U.S. federal and state courts in jurisdictional disputes and conflict of laws cases. He has represented numerous public interest groups in constitutional, and public interest appeals, and has argued sovereign immunity cases in the Ontario courts, the U.S. federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of and in challenges to a number of national governments.
Lorne Waldman, LL.B., LL.M., graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1977. He was called to the bar in 1979 and since then he has been practicing exclusively in the area of immigration and refugee law. Mr. Waldman has appeared very frequently at all levels of courts in Canada, including the Federal Court where he has argued many of the leading cases in immigration and refugee law. He was counsel for the Senate of the Republic of Italy when it intervened before the Supreme Court in Burns and Rafay and was one of the senior counsels representing Maher Arar at the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar. He recently represented the Canadian Bar Association in The Prime Minister of Canada et al v. Omar Khadr.
A light lunch will be served.
Event date: Tuesday, November 24, 2009, from 12:30 AM to 2:00 AM
Location: Room FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Albie Sachs: The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law
2010-01-15 15:00 - 16:00
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 Nelson Mandela to South Africa’s first Constitutional Court, which has heard landmark cases dealing with terrorism and torture, social and economic rights, the truth commission, and same sex marriages, argues that reason and passion are inextricably linked in the judicial function. The talk offers a unique insight into the judicial philosophy of one of the world’s most prominent constitutional judges, recounted in Sachs’ recent book The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law (OUP, 2009).
Read more about Albie Sachs
To be followed by a reception and book signing in the Rowell Room, Flavelle House.

The Khadr Decision: A Just Result?
2010-02-11 12:30 - 14:00
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 the form of sleep deprivation by U.S. authorities against Mr. Khadr when he was 15 years old in order to soften him up for interrogations conducted by Canadian authorities. However, it stopped short of ordering what was being sought – the request by the Canadian government to release him from Guantanamo and return him to Canada – citing Crown prerogative in regard to foreign relations. What are the implications of this decision? What is the appropriate role for the judiciary in the circumstances of this case? Is a declaration of injustice a just remedy? What difference does it make that Omar Khadr was a child at the time of the initial violations and the allegations against him?
Our Panel:
Prof. Audrey Macklin is a professor at the Faculty of Law. She holds law degrees from Yale and Toronto, and a bachelor of science degree from Alberta. She served as law clerk to Mme Justice Bertha Wilson at the Supreme Court of Canada. Prof. Macklin’s teaching areas include criminal law, administrative law, and immigration & refugee law. Her research and writing interests include transnational migration, citizenship, forced migration, feminist and cultural analysis, and human rights. She has published on these subjects in numerous journals and in collections of essays such as The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill and Engendering Forced Migration. Prof. Macklin has been active in the Omar Khadr case and most recently acted as co-counsel for the Asper Centre in Prime Minister of Canada et al. v. Omar Khadr at the Supreme Court.
Prof. Kent Roach is Prichard-Wilson Chair of Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, with cross-appointments in criminology and political science, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and of Yale, and a former law clerk to Justice Bertha Wilson of the Supreme Court of Canada. Professor Roach’s books include Constitutional Remedies in Canada (winner of the 1997 Owen Prize for best law book), Due Process and Victims’ Rights: The New Law and Politics of Criminal Justice (short-listed for the 1999 Donner Prize for best public policy book), The Supreme Court on Trial: Judicial Activism or Democratic Dialogue (short-listed for the 2001 Donner Prize), and September 11: Consequences for Canada (named one of the five most significant books of 2003 by the Literary Review of Canada). In recent years, Professor Roach has specialized in anti-terrorism law and policy and is the co-editor of The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill (2001) and Global Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy (2005). Professor Roach also served on the research advisory committee for the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar and is Director of Research (Legal Studies) for the Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182.
Prof. David Schneiderman is Professor of Law and Political Science. He was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1984 where he practised law and then served as Research Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in Toronto from 1986-89. He was Executive Director of the Centre for Constitutional Studies, an interdisciplinary research institute, at the University of Alberta from 1989-99. Professor Schneiderman has authored numerous articles on Canadian federalism, the Charter of Rights, Canadian constitutional history, and constitutionalism and globalization. He has authored Constitutionalizing Economic Globalization: Investment Rules and Democracy’s Promise (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and co-authored The Last Word: Media Coverage of the Supreme Court of Canada with Florian Sauvageau and David Taras (UBC Press, 2006). He is founding editor of the quarterly Constitutional Forum Constitutionnel and founding editor-in-chief of the journal Review of Constitutional Studies.
Cheryl Milne is the executive director of the Asper Centre. She has extensive experience as a legal advocate for children previously with the legal clinic Justice for Children and Youth. There she led the clinic’s Charter litigation at the Supreme Court of Canada including the challenge to the corporal punishment defence in the Criminal Code [Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v. Canada (2004)], the striking down of the reverse onus sections of the Youth Criminal Justice Act for adult sentencing [R. v. D.B. (2008)], and most recently an intervention involving the right of a capable adolescent to consent to her own medical treatment (A.C. v. Manitoba Child and Family Services (2009)]. She is currently the Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights section.
The workshop will be moderated by Prof. Hamish Stewart.

Event date: Thursday, February 11, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Rm FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Link to the webcast here.

Overdue Update or Big Brother? Lawful Access and Cyber Surveillance
2010-02-25 12:30 - 14:00
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 introduced with the intent of updating the state’s authority to access electronic communications data. These bills have been controversial, provoking very different responses from the law enforcement and privacy communities.
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association are co-hosting a workshop to explore the important issues associated with giving law enforcement easier access to electronic communications data. Topics will include: the emerging realities of internet privacy, informational privacy, and defence and crown perspectives on proposed “lawful access” legislation.
Speakers will include:
Prof. David Murakami Wood is a Canada Research Chair in Surveillance Studies and Associate Professor at Queen’s University. He is a member of Queen’s new Surveillance Studies Centre and Managing Editor of Surveillance & Society, the international journal of surveillance studies. In 2006 he coordinated the influential Report on the Surveillance Society for the UK Information Commissioner (ICO) and organised submissions to the UK House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries on surveillance. Professor Murakami Wood’s research and teaching interests include surveillance and globalization, new technologies of surveillance, and the history, politics and ethics of surveillance. He is currently writing several books and has published numerous articles on surveillance-related issues.
Prof. Lisa Austin is an associate professor at the Faculty of Law, where she is affiliated with the Centre for Innovation Law and Policy. Prior to joining the faculty, she served as law clerk to Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada. Professor Austin’s research and teaching interests include property, privacy, the legal regulation of information and the ethical and social justice issues raised by emerging technologies. She is currently developing work on issues such as the challenges that information technology poses to our conception of privacy, and what theory of law is most responsive to the needs of a technological society.
Robert Hubbard was called to the Ontario Bar in 1977. He is counsel with the Crown Law Office – Criminal of the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario. Previously, Bob was Senior General Counsel with the Department of Justice in Toronto. He has appeared as counsel at all levels of court. Most recently, Bob was involved in the prosecution of Livent principals Garth Drabinsky and Myron Gottlieb. He has appeared as counsel on many search and seizure/privacy cases at the Supreme Court. Bob has co-authored the books Wiretapping and Other Electronic Surveillance: Law and Practice, 2000, Aurora, Canada Law Book, The Law of Privilege in Canada, 2006, Aurora, Canada Law Book and Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime, 2004, Toronto, Irwin Law. Bob has also published several articles dealing with privacy issues including: Hubbard, R.W., DeFreitas, P. and Magotiaux, S. “The Internet — Expectations of Privacy in a New Context” [2001] 45 Criminal Law Quarterly 170-197; Hubbard, R.W., Magotiaux, S., and Proestos, X., “The Limits of Privacy: Police Access to Subscriber Information in Canada,” [2002] 46 Criminal Law Quarterly 361- 390. He lectures extensively on criminal law and advocacy related issues.
Adam Boni is a criminal defence lawyer. He began his career as a federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice. In 1999, he left the federal prosecution service to start his own boutique criminal defence practice in downtown Toronto. During the past decade, Mr. Boni has litigated a number of large criminal cases, at trial and on appeal, involving complex Charter of Rights issues. He has a keen interest in search and seizure litigation involving electronic surveillance. Mr. Boni is a past Director of the Ontario Criminal Lawyers’ Association (2007-2009). He is a co-author of Sentencing Drug Offenders (Canada Law Book, 2004) and has written extensive papers on warrantless search issues and roadside drug investigations for the Advocates’ Society. Mr. Boni has been a regular guest speaker at a number of Continuing Legal Education programs offered by the Advocates’ Society and the Criminal Lawyers’ Association on Charter of Rights’ issues. He has been a guest lecturer at training programs and legal educational conferences held for Canada Border Services Agents, Peel Regional Police, the Toronto Police Service, the Ontario Provincial Police and the York Regional Police Service.
This panel discussion will be moderated by Graeme Norton, Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s Public Safety Project.
Event date: Thursday, February 25, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO WEBCAST

Is none still too many?
2010-10-05 12:30 - 14:00
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 – Flavelle House – 78 Queen’s Park
James C. Hathaway, the William Hearn Professor and Dean of the Melbourne Law School, is a leading authority on international refugee law whose work is regularly cited by the most senior courts of the common law world. He is also Senior Visiting Research Associate at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Programme, and President of the Cuenca Colloquium on International Refugee Law. Hathaway was previously the James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor and founding Director of the Program in Refugee and Asylum Law at the University of Michigan, USA (1998-2008), Professor of Law and Associate Dean of the Osgoode Hall Law School, Canada (1984-1998), Counsel on Special Legal Assistance for the Disadvantaged to the Government of Canada (1983-1984), and Professeur adjoint de droit at the Université de Moncton, Canada (1980-1983). He has been appointed a visiting professor at the Universities of Cairo, California, Macerata, and Tokyo and has provided training on refugee law to academic, non-governmental, and official audiences around the world. Hathaway’s publications include more than sixty journal articles, a leading treatise on the refugee definition (The Law of Refugee Status, 1991), an interdisciplinary study of models for refugee law reform (Reconceiving International Refugee Law, 1997) and, most recently, The Rights of Refugees under International Law (2005) – the first comprehensive analysis of the human rights of refugees set by the UN Refugee Convention, all linked to key international human rights norms and applied to the world’s most difficult protection challenges. He serves as Counsel on International Protection to both the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and Asylum Access, a non-profit organization committed to delivering innovative legal aid to refugees in the global South. Hathaway also sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Refugee Studies and the Immigration and Nationality Law Reports and directs the Refugee Caselaw Site (www.refugeecaselaw.org), a website that collects, indexes, and publishes leading judgments on refugee law.
Audrey Macklin is a professor at the Faculty of Law. She holds law degrees from Yale and Toronto, and a bachelor of science degree from Alberta. After graduating from Toronto, she served as law clerk to Mme Justice Bertha Wilson at the Supreme Court of Canada. She was appointed to the faculty of Dalhousie Law School in 1991, promoted to Associate Professor 1998, moved to the University of Toronto in 2000, and became a full professor in 2009. While teaching at Dalhousie, she also served as a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Professor Macklin’s teaching areas include criminal law, administrative law, and immigration and refugee law. Her research and writing interests include transnational migration, citizenship, forced migration, feminist and cultural analysis, and human rights. She has published on these subjects in journals such as Refuge and Canadian Woman Studies, and in collections of essays such as The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill and Engendering Forced Migration.
Lorne Waldman LL.B. (Osgoode), LL.M (Toronto) practices exclusively in the area of immigration and refugee law, and has done so since 1979. Mr. Waldman has appeared very frequently at all levels of the courts in Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal where he has argued many of the leading cases in immigration and refugee law. Mr. Waldman successfully acted as co counsel for Maher Arar at the public inquiry into the circumstances behind his deportation from the United States to Syria where he was subjected to brutal torture. The Public Inquiry concluded that there was absolutely no evidence that Mr. Arar was involved in any illegal activities. He acted for the Canadian Bar Association at the recent Supreme Court hearings in the case of Charkaoui where the Supreme Court struck down the Security Certificates. He has also appeared for the CBA as one of the spokesperson on national security issues at hearings into the Review of the Anti Terrorism Legislation and assisted in the writing of the CBA briefs on the Anti Terrorism Legislation to the Parliamentary And Senate Committees. Mr. Waldman has appeared as a witness before the House of Commons and Senate on issues of immigration and refugee law frequently and is a frequent commentator on immigration and refugee issues in the media. He is the author and editor of Immigration Law and Practice, a two volume, loose leaf service published by Butterworth’s Canada in 1992, and two other works: The Definition of Convention Refugee published by Butterworths in 2001 and Canadian Immigration and Refugee Practice, first published in October of 2005 by Butterworths. It is published annually with updates to case digests and commentary. In August, 2007 he was awarded the Louis St Laurent award by the CBA for his contribution to the legal profession.

Symposium: The Role of Interveners in Public Interest Litigation
2010-11-06 08:30 - 17:00
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 powerful interveners such as governments and advocacy organizations representing groups in society seeking to be heard on the significant human rights issues of the day. The role that all of these interveners play in court and in the public discourse surrounding these cases is the subject of this one day symposium.
The symposium’s outstanding faculty of professionals and academics include leading jurists and representatives of government interveners, public interest groups and the private bar. International panelists will explore the roles that interveners take in jurisdictions outside of Canada. The symposium will also highlight new research on the impact of interveners at the Supreme Court of Canada conducted by the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law.
Speakers Include: Hon. Justice Dennis O’Connor, Hon. Frank Iacobucci, Hon. Justice Stephen Goudge, Frank Addario, Nathalie Des Rosiers, R. Douglas Elliott, Clive Baldwin, Michael Fordham, Q.C, Paul Collins (author Friends of the Court), Michal Fairburn, among others
Webcast
Program
Conference Papers
Symposium Participants

Becoming Supreme: How Federalism Fosters Judicial Power
2010-11-29 12:30 - 14:00
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, each problematic in some way. By looking at the answer to this question in the context of the Supreme Court of the United States, we demonstrate the vital role a federal system can play in both the rise and maintenance of judicial supremacy. In a unitary (non-federal) system, a judiciary possessing the power of judicial review necessarily will find itself frequently at odds with – and rarely helpful to – the governing regime. By contrast, in a federal system, the judiciary can provide vital support to the central government in suppressing outlier conduct. We describe the process by which this central insight accounts initially for “vertical” supremacy, the supremacy of the Supreme Court over state and local governments and ultimately transforms itself into “horizontal” supremacy the binding effect of judicial pronouncements over the coordinate branches of the national government. This project is theoretical and historical both: it identifies the mechanisms for the transformation from vertical to horizontal supremacy, and recounts how this occurred in the United States. While the historical detail is unique to the United States, the model has the potential to explain the rise and maintenance of judicial supremacy in many countries across the globe.
Professor Friedman is one of the country’s leading authorities on constitutional law and the federal courts. He is a prolific scholar, working at the intersections of law, politics and history. Friedman teaches a wide variety of courses including Constitutional Law, Federal Courts, and Criminal Procedure. He writes extensively about judicial review, constitutional law and theory, federal jurisdiction and judicial behavior. His scholarship appears regularly in the nation’s top law and peer-edited reviews. He is the author of widely-recognized The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2009), which examines the history of the relationship between popular opinion and the Supreme Court, from 1776 to the present. Along with his co-author Stephen Burbank, Friedman co-edited and contributed to Judicial Independence at the Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Approach, which questions common assumptions about the nature of judicial independence and how it can be protected. The book has been cited and relied upon countless times by scholars and policymakers alike. Professor Friedman is a frequent contributor to the nation’s leading journals, both on-line and print. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, The Los Angeles Times, Politico and The New Republic, among others. Professor Friedman graduated from the University of Chicago and received his law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center. He clerked for the Honorable Phyllis A. Kravitch of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and also worked as a litigation associate at Davis, Polk & Wardwell in Washington D.C. He was a professor at Vanderbilt Law School before joining the NYU faculty in 2000. In 1995 he won the Clarence Darrow Award from the ACLU of Tennessee for his work in defense of civil liberties.
A light lunch will be served

Event date: Monday, November 29, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM

Location: Faculty Common Room, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law

Constitutional Roundtable
2011-02-03 16:00 - 17:30
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 barrister and then a senior civil servant, and still works closely with Whitehall. In 2009 he produced a report on minority Parliaments and the challenges they would present for Westminster and Whitehall, including the lessons to be learnt from Canada and New Zealand. That prompted the UK Cabinet Office to publish guidance on the key constitutional conventions before the 2010 general election. The guidance has since been consolidated in a new Cabinet Manual published in December. Prof Hazell advised on the new Cabinet Manual, and is now conducting a study of how the new coalition government works.

In a lecture co-sponsored by the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, Faculty of Law and the Department of Political Science, Professor Hazell will explain the background to the new coalition government in the UK, and explore its prospects. He will focus in particular on its plans for constitutional reform: fixed term parliaments, the 2011 referendum on the voting system, reducing the size of the House of Commons, electing the House of Lords. He will conclude with reflections on whether coalition government might become the norm in future in the UK.
The lecture will be followed by a reception in the Rowell room with The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson.

The Canadian Judicial Appointment Process
2011-09-15 12:30 - 14:00
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 fields of constitutional, aboriginal and judicial politics. Recent focus has been on minority government and constitutional conventions relating to parliamentary democracy. Recent publications include, Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism (2005); Appointing Judges in an Age of Judicial Power (2006); Two Cheers for Minority Government (2008); Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis (2009).
Jacob Ziegel, LLB (Hons.)(London), LL.M., Ph.D., LL.D. (London). Professor Ziegel grew up largely in England and received his legal education there. He is a member of the English and Ontario bars. His first teaching post was at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon where he taught from 1962-1966. He then taught at McGill University and the Osgoode Hall Law School before joining the University of Toronto law school in 1975. There he remained until his retirement in 1993. He has remained very active since his retirement, both in teaching and in pursuing his interests as editor in chief of the Canadian Business Law Journal and convenor of the Annual Workshop of Commercial and Consumer Law held annually usually at the UoT law school, and in legal research and writing. Professor Ziegel’s primary interests are in commercial and consumer law and insolvency law, both international and domestic, with strong secondary interests in business organizations law and the judicial administration of justice. Professor Ziegel holds the LSUC’s medal of honour and an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Victoria.
A light lunch will be provided.

U of T Law Faculty Members Comment on the Polygamy Reference
2012-01-17 12:30 - 14:00
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 British Columbia, the Attorney General of Canada and an Amicus Curiae appointed for the reference, along with 13 interested persons, including the David Asper Centre.
A number of academics from the Faculty of Law will weigh in on the decision, offering diverse perspectives on the constitutional arguments, international law, procedures and evidenciary issues in the case. Confirmed speakers include the following:
Brenda Cossman joined the Faculty of Law in 1999, and became a full professor in 2000. She holds degrees in law from Harvard and the University of Toronto, and an undergraduate degree from Queen’s. In 2002 and 2003, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, she was Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. Professor Cossman’s teaching and scholarly interests include family law, law and sexuality, and freedom of expression. Her most recent book Sexual Citizens: The Legal and Cultural Regulation of Sex and Belonging was published by Stanford University Press in 2007. Her publications include the co-authored Bad Attitudes on Trial: Pornography, Feminism and the Butler Decision (University of Toronto Press) and Censorship and the Arts (published by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries).
Mohammad Fadel is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, which he joined in January 2006. He received his B.A. in Government and Foreign Affairs (1988), a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (1995) and his J.D. from the University of Virginia (1999). While at the University of Virginia School of Law, Professor Fadel was a John M. Olin Law and Economics Scholar and Articles Development Editor of the Virginia Law Review. Prior to law school, Professor Fadel completed his Ph.D in Chicago, where he wrote his dissertation on legal process in medieval Islamic law. Professor Fadel was an expert witness in the Reference.
Hamish Stewart joined the Faculty of Law in 1993 and is now a Professor of Law at the University of Toronto. Before attending law school, he studied economics (B.A., University of Toronto, 1983; Ph.D., Harvard University, 1989) and taught for a year in the economics department at Williams College. He received an LL.B. degree from the University of Toronto in 1992, clerked at the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1992-93, and was called to the Ontario Bar in 1998. Professor Stewart teaches criminal law and the law of evidence, and has published numerous papers in these areas as well as papers on the law of contract, legal theory, and economic methodology. He is the general editor of Evidence: A Canadian Casebook, 2d ed. (Toronto: Emond Montgomery, 2006), an associate editor of the Dominion Law Reports and Canadian Criminal Cases, and book review editor of the University of Toronto Law Journal.
Lorraine E. Weinrib was appointed to the Faculty of Law and the Department of Political Science in 1988. Previously, she worked in the Crown Law Office – Civil, Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario), holding the position of Deputy Director of Constitutional Law and Policy at the time of her departure. Her work included legal advice and policy development on constitutional issues, as well as extensive litigation, frequently in the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1993, Professor Weinrib was Visiting Professor (Fulbright Fellowship) at the University of Michigan Law School; in 1994 at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Halbert Academic Exchange); and in 2001 and 2002 at the Tel Aviv Faculty of Law. She holds law degrees from Yale and Toronto, and an undergraduate degree from York University. Professor Weinrib teaches the first year constitutional law course as well as advanced courses on the Charter, constitutional litigation, and comparative constitutional law. Her writing, in which she advocates the institutional coherence of the Charter, includes articles on the interpretation of sections 1 and 33, the theoretical dimension of the Supreme Court of Canada’s Charter jurisprudence, the process leading up to the 1982 amendments to the Constitution, and studies of leading cases, e.g., Morgentaler (abortion), Ford (override), Keegstra (hate promotion) and Rodriguez (assisted suicide). She has also written on the topic of women in the legal profession.
Carol Rogerson is a professor at the Faculty of Law, where she began teaching in 1983. She served as Associate Dean of the Faculty from 1991 to 1993. She holds degrees in law from Harvard and Toronto, a master’s degree in English from Toronto, and an undergraduate degree from the University of Alberta. Professor Rogerson’s teaching and research interests encompass constitutional and family law. She is editor of Competing Visions of Constitutionalism: The Meech Lake Accord (with K. Swinton) and one of the co-authors of Canadian Constitutional Law. She is also the author of numerous law review articles in both the constitutional and family law areas and has frequently worked with governments on issues of family law reform. In 1985 she was honoured with a University of Toronto Teaching Award.
Rebecca Cook, A.B. (Barnard), M.A. (Tufts), M.P.A. (Harvard), J.D. (Georgetown), LL.M. (Columbia), J.S.D. (Columbia), called to the Bar of Washington, D.C., is Professor and Faculty Chair in International Human Rights, and Co-Director of the International Programme on Reproductive and Sexual Health Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. She also holds positions in the Faculty of Medicine and the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. She is ethical and legal issues co-editor of the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, and serves on the editorial advisory boards of Human Rights Quarterly and Reproductive Health Matters. She has written with B.M. Dickens and M.F. Fathalla, Reproductive Health and Human Rights: Integrating Medicine, Ethics and Law (Oxford, 2003) (translated into Chinese, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, case studies translated into Arabic). She is also the author of Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives, with Simone Cusack, published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 2009. She was an expert witness in the Polygamy Reference.
David Schneiderman, B.A (McGill) 1980, LL.B. (Windsor) 1983, LL.M. (Queen’s) 1993, is Professor of Law and Political Science. He was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1984 where he practised law and then served as Research Director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in Toronto from 1986-89. He was Executive Director of the Centre for Constitutional Studies, an interdisciplinary research institute, at the University of Alberta from 1989-99. Professor Schneiderman has authored numerous articles on Canadian federalism, the Charter of Rights, Canadian constitutional history, and constitutionalism and globalization. He has authored Constitutionalizing Economic Globalization: Investment Rules and Democracy’s Promise (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and co-authored The Last Word: Media Coverage of the Supreme Court of Canada with Florian Sauvageau and David Taras (UBC Press, 2006).
Moderator: Cheryl Milne, Executive Director of the Asper Centre, was called to the Ontario Bar in 1987 and completed an MSW at the University of Toronto in 1991. Prior to coming to the Centre, Ms Milne was a legal advocate for children with the legal clinic Justice for Children and Youth. There she led the clinic’s Charter litigation including the challenge to the corporal punishment defence in the Criminal Code [Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v Canada (2004)], the striking down of the reverse onus sections of the Youth Criminal Justice Act for adult sentencing [R v D.B. (2008)], and an intervention involving the right of a capable adolescent to consent to her own medical treatment [A.C. v Manitoba Child and Family Services (2009)]. She has represented the Asper Centre in R v Conway and most recently in the Polygamy Reference case. She is the Past Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights section and teaches a clinical course in constitutional advocacy at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, and Social Work & the Law at Ryerson University. Ms Milne is also the director of the combined JD and MSW program at the Faculty of Law.
Event date: Tuesday, January 17, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Bennett Lecture Hall, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law

The Omnibus Crime Bill: Bill C-10
2012-01-23 12:30 - 14:00
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 for a range of offences, and a stricter approach to the youth criminal justice system. The reforms received severe criticism from civil liberties groups and from the provincial governments who will have to internalize a portion of the high costs entailed. This Asper Centre panel event aims to focus on the wisdom of the new policies in light of social science research, the practical effect of the reforms for criminal law practitioners, and the impact on young offenders.
Panel Discussion with:
Professor Anthony Doob, FRSC is a professor of criminology at the Centre for Criminology and Social Studies at the University of Toronto. He holds an A.B from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University. Professor Doob has published extensively in the areas of penal policy and sentencing. His research interests include juvenile justice, the development of criminal justice policy in Canada, and public perception of crime and the justice system. Currently, he is doing research on two separate topics. First, he is continuing his investigation of the manner in which the youth justice system processes young people. Secondly, in collaboration with Cheryl Webster, at the University of Ottawa, he is conducting research in the area of criminal justice punishment policies in Canada during the past half century. This past fall, Professor Doob appeared in front of the House of Commons committee reviewing Bill C-10.
Clayton Ruby, CM, LLD is one of Canada’s leading lawyers specializing in criminal, constitutional, administrative and civil rights law. Mr. Ruby received his LL.B. from the University of Toronto and his LL.M. from the University of California (Berkeley). Mr. Ruby also authored the leading resource on the law of sentencing in Canada, Sentencing, which, for the past 25 years, has been used by criminal practitioners and the Supreme Court of Canada as the leading authority on the topic. Mr. Ruby has been counsel in several high profile matters, including representing Donald Marshall Jr. at the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall Jr. Prosecution, representing Atif Ahmad Rafay in US v Burns and Rafay, obtaining an acquittal for the wrongfully convicted Guy Paul Morin, and representing Ralph Hussey in R v Askov. In 2006, Mr. Ruby was made a Member of the Order of Canada.
Cheryl Milne is a leading children’s rights lawyer and the Executive Director of the Asper Centre. Prior to coming to the Centre, Ms Milne was a legal advocate for children with the legal clinic Justice for Children and Youth. There she led the clinic’s Charter litigation including the challenge to the corporal punishment defence in the Criminal Code [Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v. Canada (2004)], the striking down of the reverse onus sections of the Youth Criminal Justice Act for adult sentencing [R. v. D.B. (2008)], and an intervention involving the right of a capable adolescent to consent to her own medical treatment ( A.C. v. Manitoba Child and Family Services (2009)]. She has represented the Asper Centre in R. v. Conway and most recently in the Polygamy Reference case. She is the Past Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights section.
Moderated by Professor Vincent Chiao, B.A. (University of Virginia), Ph.D. (Northwestern), J.D. (Harvard). Prof. Chiao researches and teaches primarily in the area of criminal law and criminal justice, with a particular interest in the philosophical examination of its doctrine and institutions. Prior to joining the faculty in 2011, he was a law clerk for the Hon. Juan R. Torruella of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and a Reginald F. Lewis Fellow at Harvard Law School.
A light lunch will be served.
Event date: Monday, January 23, 2012, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLC, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law

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

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

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

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

Constitutional Roundtable- Richard Stacey
2015-02-05 12:30 - 14:00
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 group of academics was mandated to propose amendments to the Constitution which, once approved by referendum on 19 March, became Egypt’s ‘interim’ Constitution. A process for the drafting and adoption of a new constitution was initiated, and the 2012 Constitution was adopted by referendum in December 2012. The armed forces again assumed executive control in July 2013 and suspended the 2012 Constitution, with another new constitution approved at referendum in January 2014. During both periods of military control, it remains unclear what replaced the suspended Constitution as the country’s foundational legal instrument. The Egyptian case is an example of constitutional interregnum, where political authority is exercised in the apparent absence of any formal constitutional foundation for political authority. This paper focuses on these periods of constitutional interregnum, exploring through a number of contemporary and historical cases how the gap left by the suspension of a constitution during a period of constitutional replacement is filled. The paper argues that even without a formal written constitution, a governing body’s authority and the lawfulness of its conduct depends on adherence to supra-constitutional principles derived from the commitment to constitutional democracy itself. Because a democratic constitution claims to speak for the whole people, the law in force during the constitutional interregnum and which governs the drafting of a new constitution must, at least, treat all and each of the people as equals and affirm a democratic right to representation in the drafting process. Any meaningful claim to be exercising authority in the name of the people – a claim to the authority of popular sovereignty – implies a commitment to a set of principles capable of constraining and directing the groups or individuals who exercise authority. These principles provide a constitutional foundation for government and for the legal system during the interregnum, ensuring both a benchmark for lawful government and legal continuity.
Richard Stacey served as Director of Research at the Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law until joining the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. He holds a PhD from New York University’s Institute for Law and Society and bachelors degrees in political theory and law from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He served as law clerk to Justice Kate O’Regan and Justice Bess Nkabinde at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and has taught courses in political theory, constitutional law, administrative law and human rights at the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town and the City University of New York Law School. In 2009 he was a research consultant during Kenya’s constitutional review process and has remained involved in constitutional transitions around the world, providing technical advice through the Center for Constitutional Transitions in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. His work has appeared in a number of journals of law and political theory, the multi-author reference work Constitutional Law of South Africa (of which he acts as co-editor), and in books on constitutional design, land reform, and women’s rights.
A light lunch will be provided.

WEBINAR: COVID-19 Contact Tracing and the Canadian Constitution
2020-07-29 12:00 - 13:30
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, however, the apps must be carefully constructed and the information they collect must be safeguarded. In a highly collaborative research paper entitled “Test, Trace, and Isolate: COVID-19 and the Canadian Constitution,” a team of experts from the University of Toronto, York University and the Ontario Tech University reviewed the benefits and limitations of using contact tracing apps to identify people who have been exposed to COVID-19.
In this webinar, the paper’s authors Lisa Austin (pictured), Vincent Chiao, David Lie (pictured), and Andrea Slane took part in a group discussion, led by Asper Centre Executive Director Cheryl Milne, about their research and conclusions including: the usefulness of contact tracing apps, the privacy choices involved in the technical design of these apps, which app the government has selected to use and why, as well as the privacy impacts considered under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which provides a framework for balancing competing rights and interests.
The panelists will be available for questions at the end of their discussion. An electronic copy of the paper is available here. Email tal.schreier@utoronto.ca for inquiries.
WEBINAR RECORDING LINK
Authors’ BIOS
Lisa Austin BA &Sc (McMaster) 1994, MA (Toronto) 1995, LLM (Toronto) (1998), PhD (Toronto) 2005, called to the Bar of Ontario in 2006, is a Professor of Law and the Chair in Law and Technology at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. She is a co-founder of the IT3 Law at the University of Toronto, which engages in interdisciplinary research on privacy and transparency. Professor Austin’s research and teaching interests include privacy law, property law, and legal theory. She is published in such journals as Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, and Canadian Journal of Law and Society. Professor Austin’s privacy work has been cited numerous times by Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada.
Vincent Chiao, B.A. (University of Virginia), Ph.D. (Northwestern), J.D. (Harvard), is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Toronto. He researches and teaches primarily in the area of criminal law and criminal justice, with a particular interest in the philosophical examination of its doctrine and institutions. He is the author of Criminal Law in the Age of the Administrative State (Oxford University Press 2018). He is also responsible for overseeing the Faculty of Law’s appellate criminal law externship, which provides selected third year JD students with the opportunity to work directly on criminal appeals, including before the Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.
Dr. Beth Coleman is Associate Professor of Data & Cities at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, where she directs the City as Platform lab. Working in the disciplines of Science and Technology Studies and Critical Race Theory, her research focuses on smart technology & machine learning, urban data, and civic engagement. She is the author of Hello Avatar and multiple articles addressing issues of smart cities, urban data, augmentation & experience design, and critical race, among others. She has presented at leading international conferences and municipal contexts such as CHI; Sharing Cities, Barcelona; Gender and Cities, Geneva; Mars/Waterfront Toronto. Her research affiliations include the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University; Microsoft Research; Data & Society Institute, New York; and expert consultant for the European Commission Digital Futures. She is one of the foundational directors of Thriving Cities, Mistletoe Singapore. Her previous academic positions include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Waterloo.
David Lie received his BASc from the University of Toronto in 1998, and his MS and PhD from Stanford University in 2001 and 2004 respectively. He is currently Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto.  He also holds appointments in the Department of Computer Science, the Faculty of Law and is a research lead with the Schwartz Riesman Institute for Technology and Society.  He is known for his seminal work on the XOM architecture, which was an early precursor to modern trusted execution processor architectures such as ARM Trustzone and Intel SGX.  He was the recipient of a best paper award at SOSP for this work. David is also a recipient of the MRI Early Researcher Award, Connaught Global Challenge Award.  He developed the PScout Android Permission mapping tool, whose datasets have been downloaded over 10,000 times and used in dozens of subsequent papers.  David has served on various program committees including OSDI, Usenix Security, IEEE Security & Privacy, NDSS and CCS.  Currently, his interests are focused on securing mobile platforms, cloud computing security and bridging the divide between technology and policy.
Martha Shaffer is a Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, which she joined in 1990. She holds law degrees from Harvard and Toronto, as well as an undergraduate degree from Harvard. She served as Law Clerk to the Supreme Court of Canada for Chief Justice Brian Dickson, before becoming the Boulton Junior Fellow at the Faculty of Law, McGill University. Professor Shaffer’s principal research and teaching interests concentrate on criminal law, family law and equality issues.
Dr. Andrea Slane joined Ontario Tech University’s Faculty of Social Science and Humanities in 2009 as an Associate Professor in the Legal Studies program. She is also the Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Programs, Legal Studies. Her research focuses on privacy, data protection, and the variety of legal regimes that protect people from both individual and commercial wrongdoing online and over digital devices. She has a substantial body of work on the appropriate means to regulate the flow of personal information, whether between individuals; individuals and businesses; businesses and government; business to business; or to the public. She has also conducted sociological research on the views of professionals who work with victims of online child sexual exploitation, and is currently engaged in a new project examining senior citizens’ views toward new social support technologies such as digital assistants and social robots, and the kinds of protections they feel they need.
François Tanguay-Renaud is a Professor of Law and the Director of York University’s Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security since 2012. He is also one of the founders and first Director of York’ University’s Juris Doctor/Master of Arts (JD/MA) combined program in law and philosophy, the founder and main administrator of the Ontario Legal Philosophy Partnership (OLPP) and a former Associate Dean Research, Graduate Studies, and Institutional Relations. Professor Tanguay-Renaud holds degrees in both civil and common law from McGill University, where he was both a Loran Scholar and a Greville-Smith Scholar. He also studied at the National University of Singapore, and completed his graduate work (BCL, MPhil, DPhil) at the University of Oxford. Professor Tanguay-Renaud ‘s current academic interests span a wide range of subject areas — but notably, criminal law, criminal procedure, constitutional law, emergency law, and public international law — viewed mostly through the lens of analytical legal theory.

Constitutional Roundtable with Professor Aileen Kavanagh
2023-03-28 12:30 - 14:00 | Jackman Law Building Room J140, 78 Queen’s Park
Please join us on Tuesday March 28, 2023 at 12:30pm for an Asper Centre Constitutional Roundtable with Professor Aileen Kavanagh on her forthcoming book, The Collaborative Constitution.
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian constitutional law.
All are welcome. No Registration or RSVP required. Light lunch will be provided.
The Collaborative Constitution by Aileen Kavanagh
Which branch of government should we trust to protect rights in a democracy? Some take a court-centric approach to this question, arguing that the courts provide a ‘forum of principle’ which makes them uniquely situated to protect rights against the feared and fabled ‘tyranny of the majority’. Others put their faith in the democratic legislature, as a supremely dignified, diverse, and deliberative forum which can protect our rights against the oligarchic offensive of an ermined elite. Rejecting the binary options of either the courts or the legislature, this book argues that protecting rights is a collaborative enterprise between all three branches of government where each branch has a distinct but complementary role to play, whilst working together with the other branches in constitutional partnership. Instead of advocating the hegemony and supremacy of one branch over another, this book articulates a collaborative vision of constitutionalism where the protection of rights is a shared responsibility between all three branches. On this vision, protecting rights is neither the solitary domain of a Herculean super-judge, nor the dignified pronouncements of an enlightened legislature. Instead, it is a complex, dynamic, and collaborative enterprise, where each branch of government has a valuable role to play, whilst treating the other branches with comity and respect.
The Collaborative Constitution is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in June 2023. Please see the Introduction and Ch 3 of the book, which have been graciously shared by the author in advance of this Roundtable.
Aileen Kavanagh is Professor of Constitutional Governance at Trinity College Dublin and Director of TriCON, the Trinity Centre for Constitutional Governance. Formerly Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Oxford, Aileen Kavanagh has written widely on comparative constitutional law, human rights and constitutional theory. Her previous books include Constitutional Review under the UK Human Rights Act 1998 (CUP, 2009).

Constitutional Roundtable with Professor Alison Young
2024-01-11 12:30 - 14:00 | Jackman Law Building Room J140, 78 Queen’s Park
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian and comparative constitutional law.

On Thursday January 11, 2024, the Asper Centre presented a lunchtime Constitutional Roundtable with
Professor Alison Young
The Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law & Director of Research at the Cambridge University Faculty of Law, about her new book, Unchecked Power? How Recent Constitutional Reforms Are Threatening UK Democracy (2023, Bristol University Press)
Time: 12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location: (Room FA2), Falconer Hall 84 Queen’s Park, Faculty of Law
All Are Welcome * No Registration Required * Light Lunch Provided

About the Book
Is the UK government really acting for the people? Or does this rhetoric simply justify an executive power-grab? For some, Boris Johnson’s premiership epitomised how far the UK’s democracy has been captured by populism and the Prime Minister seemed more concerned about fulfilling the wishes of the British people than with following the rules or listening to Parliament.
Events like ‘Partygate’ grabbed the headlines. Criticisms of Boris Johnson’s actions eventually led to his resignation and replacement as leader of his party and Prime Minister. Some feel that this shows that the UK’s constitution is healthy, with checks and balances in place to prevent any possible abuse of power.
While these events attracted much media attention, other constitutional changes have been taking place with little public awareness. These have strengthened governmental powers and weakened political and legal checks over governmental actions. Deliberation is being replaced by rhetoric and principles of good government no longer seem to restrain the actions of those in power.
Alison Young provides the first consolidated account of these changes, arguing that the UK is currently on a constitutional cliff-edge which endangers democracy and good constitutional government. She argues that more is needed to shore up the UK’s post-Brexit constitution to prevent it collapsing into a system of unchecked power.
From https://www.law.cam.ac.uk/people/academic/al-young/77940:
“Professor Young’s Interests
I research in all aspects of public law, both of the UK and the EU. My main interest is in constitutional theory, particularly dialogue theory, where I draw comparisons between different means of protecting human rights. I’m also interested in comparative public law, specifically drawing comparisons between UK law, EU law, the law in other commonwealth countries and France. I also have research interests in freedom of expression and in the protection of human rights through private law.
I have published widely in all of these areas, and am the author of Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Human Rights Act (Hart Publishing, 2009). I was the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2015. The Fellowship enabled me to write a book on dialogue theory, Democratic Dialogue and the Constitution (OUP, 2017), which was a runner up for the main Inner Temple Book Prize, 2018.
Professor Young’s CV / Biography
I am the Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Robinson College. I am also currently a legal advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution and an academic associate at 39 Essex Chambers. I am a member of the Editorial Board of European Public Law, and of Public Law. I’m also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I’m a trustee of The Constitution Society and a member of the UK Constitution Monitoring Group. I’m affiliated with the Oxford Human Rights Hub and with the Programme for the Foundations of Law and Constitutional Government, both at the University of Oxford. I am also an Emeritus Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford.
Before joining the University of Cambridge I studied for a Law (with French) degree at the University of Birmingham, spending a year at the Université de Limoges as part of my degree. I then completed the BCL and D Phil at Hertford College, University of Oxford. I spent three years as a Tutorial Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, before returning to Hertford as a Fellow in Law and later Professor of Public Law at the University of Oxford. At Oxford I completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and received awards for Teaching Excellence and Innovation from the University of Oxford.”
