David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

Workshop on Exclusion of Evidence Cases
2009-09-30 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Toronto)
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

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.

Intellectual Influences on Australian Federalism
2010-02-09 12:30 - 14:00
Nicholas Aroney – TC Beirne School of Law, U. of Queensland
This paper utilizes the Australian experience of federation, 1890–1901, as a vehicle for the discussion of the leading conceptions of federalism extant in the late nineteenth-century English-speaking world. In particular, the paper examines the federal theories of James Madison, James Bryce, Edward Freeman, Albert Dicey and John Burgess in the context of many others, and seeks to show that the idea of a ‘Commonwealth of commonwealths’, although controverted by contending theories, remained a central theme in late nineteenth-century conceptions of federalism.
Nicholas Aroney teaches constitutional law, comparative constitutional law and legal theory. He has published widely in these fields, including recent publications in University of Toronto Law Journal, The American Journal of Comparative Law, Law and Philosophy, Sydney Law Review and Melbourne University Law Review. He also speaks frequently at national and international conferences on these topics. Dr Aroney is the author of several books, including Freedom of Speech in the Constitution and The Constitution of a Federal Commonwealth: The Making and Meaning of the Australian Constitution, recently published by Cambridge University Press. He also recently edited a book entitled Restraining Elective Dictatorship: The Upper House Solution? published by University of Western Australia Press. He is currently working on three further books, The Jurisprudence of a Federal Commonwealth (Cambridge University Press), Shari’a in the West? (Oxford University Press) and Constitutional Federalism: Theory and Practice (Ashgate Press). Dr. Aroney came to the Law School in 1995 after working with a major national law firm and acting as a legal consultant in the field of building and construction law.
A light lunch will be provided.
Feb 9, 2010

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

Canadian Federalism and Treaty Powers: Organic Constitutionalism at Work
2010-03-02 12:30 - 14:00
Hugo Cyr – Université du Québec à Montréal
ABSTRACT: With the increased mobility and interdependence brought on by globalisation, governments can no longer deal effectively with what were traditionally regarded as «domestic issues» unless they cooperate among themselves. International law may once have been a sort of inter-state law concerned mostly with relations between states, but it now looks increasingly inside state borders and has become, to a large degree, a trans-governmental law. While this creates significant challenges even for highly-unified «nation-states», the challenges are even greater for federations in which powers have been divided up between the central government and federated states. What roles should central governments and federated states play in creating and implementing this new form of governance? Using the Canadian federation as its starting point, this case study illustrates a range of factors to be considered in the appropriate distribution of treaty powers within a federation. Professor Cyr also shows how – because it has no specific provisions dealing with the distribution of treaty powers – the Canadian constitution has «organically» developed a tight-knit set of rules and principles responding to these distributional factors. This book is therefore both about the role of federated states in the current world order and an illustration of how organic constitutionalism works.
PRESENTATION: The presentation will focus on the first part of Chapt. II in which I examine the traditional arguments put forward by the federal government to support its claim that it possesses exclusive and plenary powers to make treaties. In that chapter, I show how all such arguments are without valid constitutional foundation. I also demonstrate how orthodox constitutional sources and sound policy reasons support a division of treaty-making powers according to the general division of legislative powers
Hugo Cyr [LL.B., B.C.L. (McGill), LL.M. (Yale), LL.D. (U. de Montréal] is Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at the Université du Québec à Montréal and a member of the Québec Bar. He is a member of the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité au Québec (CRIDAQ) and Vice President of the Chaire UNESCO d’étude des fondements philosophiques de la justice et de la société démocratique. He has been a Boulton Fellow at McGill University, a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada and a Visiting Researcher at the European Academy of Legal Theory. Professor Cyr has also taught at McGill University and the Université de Montréal.
A light lunch will be served.

2010

Clinic Information Session
2010-03-15 12:30 - 14:00
Information session on clinical opportunities
Please join all the clinics for a joint information session about for-credit clinical opportunities in second and third year. Presenters will include: Asper Centre, DLS, Health Law and Equity Clinic, and the IHRP. Each clinic will review the type of cases/projects pursued, admission requirements and application details.
For more information, contact Kara Norrington at kara.norrington@utoronto.ca

Event date: Monday, March 15, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: FLA, Flavelle House

Constitutional Roundtable - Marci Hamilton
2010-03-17 12:30 - 14:00
Marci Hamilton – Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
The Rules Against Scandal and What They Mean For the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses
NOTE: Room change to FLA in Flavelle House.
MARCI A. HAMILTON is one of the United States’ leading church/state scholars and holds the Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. She is the author of JUSTICE DENIED: WHAT AMERICA MUST DO TO PROTECT ITS CHILDREN (Cambridge University Press 2008) and GOD VS. THE GAVEL: RELIGION AND THE RULE OF LAW (Cambridge University Press 2005, 2007). She is also a columnist on constitutional issues for www.findlaw.com, where her column appears every other Thursday. She has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New York University School of Law, Emory University School of Law, and the Princeton Theological Seminary.
Professor Hamilton is frequently asked to advise Congress and state legislatures on the constitutionality of pending legislation and to consult in cases involving important constitutional issues. She was lead counsel for the City of Boerne, Texas, in Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), before the Supreme Court in its seminal federalism and church/state case holding the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional. She has served as constitutional law counsel in many important clergy sex abuse and religious land use cases, and has testified before numerous state legislatures regarding elimination of the statutes of limitations for childhood sex abuse.
Professor Hamilton clerked for Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She received her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. She also received her M.A. in Philosophy and M.A., high honors, in English from Pennsylvania State University, and her B.A., summa cum laude, from Vanderbilt University. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Order of the Coif.
A light lunch will be provided.
For more workshop information, please contact Professor Lorraine Weinrib at l.weinrib@utoronto.ca or Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

Event date: Wednesday, March 17, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLA, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Criminalization of Polygamy: Constitutional or Not?
2010-03-23 12:30 - 14:00
Join us for a panel discussion on the upcoming reference at the British Columbia Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of s. 293 of the Criminal Code which prohibits polygamy in Canada. This case has attracted wide interest, and will involve various interveners, including the Asper Centre together with the Canadian Coalition for Children and Youth, and other religious, women’s and children’s, and civil liberties organizations. Cheryl Milne, Director of the Asper Centre, will moderate a panel including faculty members Lorraine Weinrib, Rebecca Cook, and Mohammad Fadel. Professor Weinrib, who has published widely in the area of the Charter and teaches several courses in constitutional law, will address the issue of freedom of religion with respect to polygamy, particularly the treatment of children and vulnerable persons by religious institutions, and more specifically the questions of religious framing of the family with reference to polygamous communities. Professor Fadel, who teaches Religion and the Liberal State: The Case of Islam and has published numerous articles in Islamic legal history, will discuss polygamy under Islamic law and associated issues freedom of religion. Finally, Professor Cook, Faculty Chair in International Human Rights and Co-Director of the International Programme on Reproductive and Sexual Health Law at the University of Toronto, will address Canada’s obligations under international law with respect to polygamy.
A light lunch will be served.

March 23, 2010

Clinical Course Deadline 2010
2010-06-14
Monday, June 14, 2010, at 4:00 PM
Deadline for upper year students to submit their application for the fall 2010 term of the Asper Centre Clinical Legal Education Course.

Who Belongs? Rights, Benefits, Obligations and Immigration Status
2010-09-24 - 2010-09-25
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is co-sponsor, with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, of a two day conference at the Faculty of Law on September 24th and 25th, 2010.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is undertaking a research project on the status of immigrant in Canadian society. Immigration status – whether it be citizenship, permanent resident status, visitor status, temporary workers status, “no status” – plays an important role in how rights, benefits and obligations are allocated. Rules regarding voting rights, access to social services, employment and property ownership often make distinctions on the basis of immigration status. What are the consequences of such distinctions? Are they appropriate?
The aim of the project is to explore the consequences of the differential access to rights and benefits on the basis of immigration status. Particularly, the following questions will be explored: What is the current situation with respect to immigration status distinctions made in different sectors such as voting rights, employment, professional affiliations, membership on boards, investment rules and access to social services? How has the concept of citizenship evolved through the years and internationally? How does it relate to First Nations’ concepts of citizenship? How should we conceptualize distinctions on the basis of immigration status in light of mobility and equality rights? Is discrimination on the basis of immigration status a proxy for racial discrimination? What is the experience of Human Rights Commissions on this issue? How does the temporary foreign workers program operate within our immigration law framework? Is it compatible with the values that sustain it? What impact do current bilateral treaties on the recognition of education credentials have on the treatment of immigrants in Canada? What should be the government’s position with respect to illegal immigrants‘ access to health, education or other social services? Should we revisit the restrictions on the right to vote, on employment rules in civil service, on participation on management boards?

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.

G20 Workshop
2010-10-06 12:30 - 14:00
Project G20 Inaugural Panel:
Protecting Rights in the Aftermath of the G20 Summit in Toronto
Project G20, a student-led working group of the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, invites the legal community and the public at large to attend its inaugural panel entitled “Protecting Rights in the Aftermath of the G20 Summit in Toronto.”
On June 26-27, 2010 Toronto hosted the summit for the Group of 20 (“G20”) nations. Anticipating the large scale protests that would precede and coincide with the summit, the Government of Canada, the Province of Ontario and the City of Toronto coordinated to establish a substantial security infrastructure and perimeter around the summit site. As many started gathering in Toronto prior to the weekend summit, complaints about improper police conduct became increasingly frequent. On June 26, as many as 10,000 people gathered in protest. While the vast majority demonstrated peacefully, a small group of black-clad individuals broke away from the main crowd, vandalizing stores and banks in the downtown core and setting fire to abandoned police vehicles. For the remainder of the weekend, the police adopted aggressive measures to control the demonstrations that subsequently lead to the arrest of more than 1,000 people, the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.
This inaugural panel will address the many allegations of breaches to Charter rights during the G20 week and add perspective to the debate about the proper balance between society’s fundamental freedoms and the state’s security interests.
For more information, please contact asper.projectg20@gmail.com
Panel Discussion with:
Cara Zwibel is Director of the Fundamental Freedoms Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She is a graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School and received her Master’s in Law from New York University where she was an Arthur T. Vanderbilt Scholar. Cara was a judicial clerk to the Honourable Ian Binnie at the Supreme Court of Canada and subsequently worked at a large national law firm practicing in the areas of public law, health law and commercial litigation. She has co-authored published articles on the rule of law in the Supreme Court of Canada and on Charter advocacy.
Professor 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.
Irina Ceric is a staff lawyer at Parkdale Community Legal Services and a PhD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. A long-time community activist, she currently works primarily with the Law Union of Ontario’s Movement Defence Committee and the Global Balkans Network.
The panel will be moderated by Professor David Schneiderman.

Event date: Wednesday, October 06, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLB, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Acts of Attrition
2010-10-12 12:30 - 14:00
Mary Eberts, S.J.D. Candidate, University of Toronto Faculty of Law
October 12, 2010

Proportionality
2010-10-21 12:30 - 14:00
Speaker: Aharon Barak, President of the Supreme Court of Israel (Emeritus)
This essay focuses on proportionality stricto sensu as a consequential test of balancing. The basic balancing rule establishes a general criterion for deciding between the marginal benefit to the public good and the marginal limit to human rights. Based on the Israeli constitutional jurisprudence, this essay supports the adoption of a principled balancing approach that translates the basic balancing rule into a series of principled balancing tests, taking into account the importance of the rights and the type of restriction. This approach provides better guidance to the balancer (legislator, administrator, judge), restricts wide discretion in balancing, and makes the act of balancing more transparent, more structured, and more foreseeable. The advantages of proportionality stricto sensu with its three levels of abstraction are several. It stresses the need to always look for a justification of a limit on human rights; it structures the mind of the balancer; it is transparent; it creates a proper dialog between the political brunches and the judiciary, and it adds to the objectivity of judicial discretion. Proportionality stricto sensu however has it critics: some claim that it attempts to balance incommensurable items; others that balancing is irrational. The answer to the critics is that it is a common base for comparison, namely the social marginal importance and that the balancing rules—basic, principled, concrete—supply a rational basis for balancing. A democracy must entrust the judiciary—the unelected independent judiciary—to be the final decision-maker—subject to constitutional amendments—about proper ends that cannot be achieved because they are not proportionality stricto sensu.
Aharon Barak, born in Lithuania in 1936, is married and the father of four. He studied law, economics and international relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Barak received an MA in law in 1958, and a doctorate in 1963. He was appointed Associate Professor of Law at the Hebrew University in 1968 and became Dean of that Faculty in 1974. From 1975-8, he occupied the position of Attorney General of Israel, an appointed and independent position in the Ministry of Justice overseeing the justice system. He was appointed to the Supreme Court of Israel in 1978 and became its President in 1995. His retirement from the Court took place in September 2006 when he reached the age of mandatory retirement. He has received a number of prizes and honours, including the Kaplan Prize for excellence in science and research and the Israel Prize in legal sciences as well as numerous honorary degrees. He is the author of a number of books in Hebrew and in English as well as numerous articles on a wide variety of legal topics. His publications in English include Judicial Discretion, Purposive Interpretation in Law and The Judge in a Democracy, from Princeton University Press.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Professor Lorraine Weinrib at l.weinrib@utoronto.ca or Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

2010

The Decriminalization of Prostitution in Ontario: Perspectives on Bedford v. Canada
2010-10-25 12:30 - 14:00
In the recent landmark case Bedford v. Canada, Justice Himmel of the Ontario Superior Court held that three provisions of the Criminal Code that criminalize facets of prostitution—living on the avails of prostitution, keeping a common bawdy house and communicating in a public place for the purpose of engaging in prostitution—infringe the core values protected by section 7 of the Charter, and that this infringement is not saved by section 1 as a reasonable limit demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. The Federal Government has indicated that it will appeal the decision, which was stayed for 30 days pending further submissions from the Crown.
A distinguished panel, which will include Professor Alan Young (counsel for the applicants in the case), Professor Brenda Cossman, and Professor Hamish Stewart, will discuss the Superior Court decision and what it means for the future of prostitution laws in Canada. Read an abridged version of the decision here or the complete decision here.

Event date: Monday, October 25, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLC, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

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

Workshop: The Interrogation Trilogy
2010-11-10 12:30 - 14:00
In three cases released on October 8, 2010, the Supreme Court added the third story in what the Court described as the “interrogation trilogy” (R. v. Oickle, R. v. Singh and R. v. Sinclair). Oickle spoke to the types of techniques that officers can legally use to persuade someone to confess, including the use of an “infallible” lie detector test. Singh permitted repeated questioning after the accused asserted his right to silence. Now, Sinclair and the other 2 decisions released together hold that a person’s s.10(b) right to counsel under the Charter does not mean that the accused has the right to have counsel present during police questioning or to consult more than once, unless there is a sufficient change in circumstances that might warrant additional legal advice.
Panel Discussion with:
Professor Hamish Stewart is an Associate Professor of Law at the U of T, 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.
John Norris is a practicing lawyer in Toronto. He received a B.A. (Honours Philosophy) from Carleton University in 1982 and an M.A. (Philosophy) from the University of Western Ontario in 1984. He received his LL.B. from the University of Toronto in 1991 and was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1993. Since then he has maintained a trial and appellate practice in the areas of criminal, constitutional and national security law. He is an adjunct member of the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, where he has taught Advanced Criminal Law, Evidence Law, Advanced Evidence and Legal Ethics, and of Osgoode Hall Law School, where he teaches in the part-time LL.M. Program in Criminal Law. He is the author of several scholarly articles, an Assistant Editor of the Canadian Rights Reporter and a regular contributor to continuing legal education programs. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. In 2008, he was appointed by the Minister of Justice to the roster of Special Advocates for security certificate proceedings under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. He was counsel for the Criminal Lawyers Association in R. v. Oickle.
John McInnes is a lawyer at the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General, Crown Law Office – Criminal and an Adjunct Professor in the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law. He received a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1992 and an LL.B. from the University of British Columbia in 1995. He articled at the Crown Law Office – Criminal in 1995-1996. From 1997 to 2000 he practised as defence counsel. In 2000, Mr. McInnes returned to the Crown Law Office – Criminal as Crown counsel. He regularly appears at all levels of Court in trial and appellate matters. He is currently a member of both the Justice Prosecutions Group and the Criminal Appeal Group within the Crown Law Office – Criminal. Mr. McInnes has also published several articles on criminal law topics and is a frequent participant in continuing education programs for criminal defence lawyers and Crown counsel. Currently, Mr. McInnes also teaches the introductory criminal procedure course at the University Faculty of Law. Mr. McInnes was counsel for the AG Ontario in R. v. Sinclair.
Alexi Wood is an associate at McCarthy Tetrault LLP. She maintains a general litigation practice, focusing on civil litigation, including medical malpractice and commercial cases. Her interests also include criminal and constitutional cases. She was the Director of the Public Safety Project at the Canadian Civil Liberties Assocationa. She also interned for the UN’s High Commission for Human Rights in Switzerland, and later was selected as a delegate in a US State Department mission to Bolivia, where she gave presentations to the US Embassy, local officials and the Bolivian Supreme Court on international law and domestic violence. Ms. Wood has hosted and produced a legal issues cable television show as well as published articles and delivered numerous lectures on a wide range of topics, including balancing civil liberties and human rights, violence against women, and international law. Ms. Wood obtained her JD from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she was a Human Rights Fellow. She was called to the Ontario bar in 2007. She acted as co-counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in R. v. Sinclair.
The panel will be moderated by Cheryl Milne, Executive Director of the Asper Centre.
A light lunch will be served.

Event date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, from 12:30 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Room FLA, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law

Symposium on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267
2010-11-19 09:00 - 12:30
The Asper Centre with the International Human Rights Program
and Canadian Civil Liberties Association
present
Symposium on the Impact of Targeted Anti-terrorist Sanctions on
Charter and International Human Rights
Program:
9:00 a.m. Welcome: Renu Mandhane, International Human Rights Program
Key Note Speaker: Judge Kimberly Prost, UN Ombudsperson for Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions
9:45 – 11:00 Litigation Strategies
Speakers: Paul Champ – Counsel for Abdelrazik
Ben Wizner – Counsel for American Civil Liberties Union
Jeremy McBride – Barrister, Chair of Interights, U.K.
Moderator: Cheryl Milne, David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
11:00 Break
11:15 – 12:30 International Law and the Charter
Speakers: Professor David Dyzenhaus – Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Professor Kent Roach – Faculty of Law, University of Toronto Professor Michelle Gallant – Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba
Moderator: Nathalie Des Rosiers, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Closing Remarks: Sukanya Pillay, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Click here for live webcast on November 19, 2010
Program Flyer

Event date: Friday, November 19, 2010, from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM
Location: Bennet Lecture Hall, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Reference re. Constitutionality of s.293 of the Criminal Code of Canada
2010-11-22 14:30 - 17:00
The hearing in the Court reference on the constitutionality of the polygamy prohibition in the Criminal Code of Canada commences in the British Columbia Supreme Court.

Event date: Monday, November 22, 2010, at 2:28 PM
Location: British Columbia Supreme Court, Vancouver, British Columbia

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.

Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture
2011-04-01 16:30 - 18:30
Marlys Edwardh

Friday, April 1, 2011
4:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Bennett Lecture Hall
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Reflecting on a distinguished career in law involving some of the most significant court cases in the country, Marlys Edwardh will address the challenges of funding important test case litigation. Her lecture caps off the afternoon’s symposium organized by the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights – Funding the Charter Challenge – and will challenge us to be creative and optimistic in advocating for social justice.

Marlys Edwardh, C.M. practises with Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP in criminal, constitutional and administrative/regulatory law, with an emphasis on civil and human rights and national security litigation. She has been counsel in many leading constitutional cases and high-profile criminal matters. Ms. Edwardh has also served as a Director, Secretary, Treasurer and Second Vice President of the Advocates’ Society, a Director of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, a Director of and subsequently Special Advisor to the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, and a Director and currently Vice President of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She appears regularly before all levels of court in Ontario, the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. Notable cases include R. v. Swain, R. v. Parks, United States v. Burns, Odhavji Estate v. Woodhouse, R. v. Truscott, R. v. Grant, and R. v. Conway. She has also served as counsel to and before several Commissions of Inquiry, including the Marshall inquiry, the Krever inquiry, and most recently the Arar inquiry. Ms. Edwardh’s commitment to social justice and her contributions to the profession have been widely recognized. She has received numerous awards and honours, including the Law Society of Upper Canada Medal, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association G. Arthur Martin Criminal Justice Award, the Vox Libera award from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Women’s Law Association President’s Award, the Toronto Lawyers’ Association Award of Distinction, Professional Recognition Awards from the Midwifery Education Programme and the Canadian Muslim Network, and the inaugural Dianne Martin Medal for Social Justice Through Law. Marlys Edwardh is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and in 2010 was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.
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.
Reception to follow in the Rowell Room.

Catholic Schools and Gay Students Associations
2011-11-09 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
Co-sponsored by Out in Law
Speakers: R. Douglas Elliott, Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Robert Keel
Monday, November 28, 2011
12:30 – 2:00
Bennett Lecture Hall, Flavelle House
78 Queen’s Park
Recently, gay students within Ontario’s Catholic school system have encountered problems that raise legal and constitutional concerns. When students at a high school in the Dufferin-Peel school board district in Mississauga tried to start a gay-straight alliance (GSA) in their high school, their principal prohibited it. At the nearby Halton Catholic District School Board, trustees removed the term “sexual orientation” from a draft text of the board’s anti-discrimination policy. After intense public pressure, they returned “sexual orientation” to the policy, but they still refuse to allow GSAs. What options are available to gay students under these circumstances? Do the students have rights to form these clubs? Do they have other options to make their lives easier as do their peers in non-Catholic public schools? Do the Catholics schools have any responsibilities to these students as gay students or can they take the positions they have taken without repercussions? What is the legal framework for the Catholic school boards’ position? What arguments support this position? What arguments support the gay students’ claims?
Bob Keel is a senior founding Partner of Keel Cottrelle LLP. Bob is qualified in both Ontario and New York State. Bob has appeared before all levels of the Courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as numerous administrative tribunals. At present, his practice is primarily focused on Education Law, including First Nations Governance issues. In particular, Bob has acted on a number of constitutional and human rights cases involving the Charter and/or Human Rights Code. Bob is also presently acting for a number of Catholic District School Boards with respect to the Ministry of Education’s Equity Initiative and, in particular, the issue of Gay and Lesbian Clubs and/or Associations. Bob has spoken at more than 100 conferences and has published more than 100 papers or articles. In addition, Bob is the President of Edu-Law Consulting Services Limited, which provides Conflict Resolution programs for the education sector. Bob is the Executive Editor of the Keel Cottrelle LLP Education Law Newsletter, Human Resources Newsletter, and Public Sector Procurement Law Newsletter. He is also the author of Student Rights and Responsibilities: Attendance and Discipline (1998), the co author of An Educator’s Guide to Managing Sexual Misconduct in Schools (2003), An Educator’s Guide to Parental Harassment (2005) and An Educator’s Guide to the Health and Safety of Students, (2010).
Douglas Elliott is a founding partner in the law firm of Roy Elliott O’Connor LLP. As one of Canada’s leading human rights lawyers, he has helped to win many important cases for Canada’s LGBT communities, including Vriend v Alberta, M. v H., Halpern v Canada, Hislop v Canada and the Reference Re Same Sex Marriage. In the case of Marc Hall v. Durham Catholic School Board, Douglas represented the Coalition in Support of Marc Hall, a diverse group that included, among others, Egale, Canadian Auto Workers and Catholics for Choice. In 2010 Douglas became the first lawyer to be honoured with the Law Society Medal for advancing LGBT rights.
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Director, Equality program, Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). As Director of CCLA’s Equality Program, Noa works on such issues as protections for migrants and refugees; healthcare; LGBTQ rights; race and gender issues; mental health and prisons; and generally the rights of persons who are marginalized or disadvantaged. Noa has also served as CCLA’s Freedom of Expression Project Director, and dealt extensively with free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. In the effort to promote and protect rights and freedoms in Canada, Noa has been involved with numerous CCLA interventions in the courts – including the Supreme Court of Canada, and has made submissions to various governmental, legislative and public bodies. She has also addressed various groups and has spoken out frequently in the media. In addition, Noa is an integral member of CCLET’s public education project, engaging students at schools and faculties of education in discussions on the challenges of civil liberties.
A light lunch will be served.

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

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

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

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

Location: Alumni Hall, Victoria College

Constitutional Roundtable - Richard Moon
2015-09-16 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Richard Moon Law Faculty University of Windsor
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Solarium, Falconer Hall
Topic: The Myth of Balancing In Constitutional Rights Cases
Richard Moon teaches at the Law Faculty, University of Windsor. He is the author of The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of Expression (U of T Press, 2000) and Freedom of Conscience and Religion (Irwin Law, 2014), editor of Law and Religious Pluralism in Canada (UBC Press, 2008), co-editor of Religion and the Exercise of Public Authority (Hart Publications, forthcoming) and contributing editor to Canadian Constitutional Law (3rd and 4th editions) (Emond-Montgomery, 2006, 2010). He is currently completing work on a book entitled “Putting Faith in Hate: When Religion is the Source or Subject of Hate Speech”. He has been the recipient of both the law school and university-wide teaching awards as well as the Mary Lou Dietz Award for contributions to the advancement of equity in the university and community.

Constitutional Roundtable - Zaid Al-Ali
2015-10-30 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Zaid Al-Ali, Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton University
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Friday, October 30, 2015
Solarium, Falconer Hall

The Absence of Social Solidarity Amongst Arab Elites: Causes and Consequences of the Failure of post-2011 Constitutional Reform
Post-colonial constitutions in the Arab region were all based on the promise that they would correct the inequities of colonial rule with a new form of social justice. Virtually all included references to political accountability, independence of the judiciary, as well as long lists of political, social and economic rights for all. The 2011 uprisings demonstrated the extent to which these constitutions failed to achieve that promise, and the reform efforts that followed were an important opportunity to correct the institutional flaws that had become so apparent. This paper will first demonstrate that the post-uprising reform efforts make close to no progress in comparison to the texts that they were designed to replace, particularly in so far as social justice is concerned. Secondly, it will demonstrate that those few elements of progress that were made were the result of generally undemocratic processes (in the traditional sense). Thirdly, the paper will explore the processes through which Arab countries reformed their constitutions, with a view to explaining why reliance on direct elections and other traditional democratic mechanisms did not generally lead to improved social justice for those individuals and communities who commenced the uprisings in the first place.
Zaid Al-Ali is Senior Adviser on Constitution Building for International IDEA and is also a fellow and visiting lecturer at Princeton University’s Law and Public Affairs Program. He has been practicing law since 1999, specializing in international commercial arbitration and comparative constitutional law. He has law degrees from Harvard Law School, the Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and King’s College London. From 2005 to 2010, he was a legal adviser to the United Nations focusing on constitutional, parliamentary and judicial reform in Iraq. Since the beginning of 2011, he has been working on constitutional reform throughout the Arab region, in particular in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen. He has published widely on Iraq and on constitutional law. His book on the post-2003 transition in Iraq (The Struggle for Iraq’s Future) was published by Yale University Press in February 2014

IHRP & Asper Centre book forum with Ninette Kelly - People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge
2022-10-28 12:00 - 15:00 | J140 Jackman Law Building, 78 Queen's Park Cres, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2C5, Canada
REGISTER
Book Forum hosted by the International Human Rights Program and the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

Friday, October 28, 2022 – 12:00pm to 3:00pm (light lunch served for those in person, at noon; program starting at 12:30pm)
Jackman Law Building, J140 or virtual

People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge (Oxford University Press 2022) by Ninette Kelley
Program

Words of welcome from Dean Jutta Brunnée
Book overview by Ninette Kelley

Commentators

Erin Simpson (JD 2013)
IHRP alumna, founding partner of Landings LLP, practicing refugee and immigration law in Toronto
Professor Yin-Yuan Chen (MSW 2005, JD 2010, SJD 2020)
IHRP and Asper Centre alumnus, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Common Law section), researching refugees’ access to health care
Professor Ghizaal Haress
Visiting Scholar and Scholar-at-Risk, University of Toronto Faculty of Law and Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy
Fen Hampson (attending virtually)
President, World Refugee and Migration Council

Response by Author
Ninette Kelley is a former senior officer in UNHCR. She recently completed a book for UNHCR to commemorate the 70th anniversaries of the creation of the Office (2020) and of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (2021). People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge (Oxford University Press, 2022). It reflects back and looks forward: drawing on the lessons of history to probe how we can improve responses to forced displacement. Prior assignments included UNHCR Director, New York (2015-2019) and UNHCR Representative, Lebanon (2010-2015).
Kelley has also held various policy and consultative roles with international humanitarian agencies focusing on development, immigration and refugee issues. In Canada she served eight years on the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). She is the author of The Making of the Mosaic: The History of Canadian Immigration Policy, University of Toronto Press, 2nd edition, October 2010 (with Michael Trebilcock) and has published in the areas of human rights law, citizenship, refugee protection, gender related persecution and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She is a lawyer by training.

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