David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights

Is none still too many?
2010-10-05 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Toronto)
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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Asper Centre Panel on Indigenous Child Welfare & Self-Governance
2024-10-31 12:30 - 14:00 | J130 Jackman law building, 78 Queen's Park, University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, Jackman Law Building Atrium, Toronto, Canada
Asper Centre Constitutional Roundtable Presents a Panel on
Indigenous Child Welfare & Self-Governance
with Prof John Borrows (the Loveland Chair of Indigenous Law, UofT Law), Prof Maggie Blackhawk (NYU Law) & Sara Mainville (JFK Law LLP)
Moderated by Asper Centre ED, Cheryl Milne
Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 12:30pm – 2:00pm (in person or virtual)
Room J130, Jackman Law Building, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
All are welcome * Light lunch will be provided * Registration Required
REGISTER HERE
Background
Over the past few years, both Canadian and American courts have decided cases that impact Indigenous Nations’ ability to care for Indigenous children. Both countries have histories and present realities of removing Indigenous children from Indigenous homes, thereby jeopardizing the safety of Indigenous children and undermining Indigenous Nations’ sovereignty and governance. With this context in mind, the recent Supreme Court of the United States Haaland v Brackeen decision, and the Supreme Court of Canada Attorney General of Québec, et al. v. Attorney General of Canada, et al decisions are of paramount importance to Indigenous sovereignty and safety. Both cases address federal legislation introduced to address the historic and ongoing harms caused by the apprehension of Indigenous children by settler governments. In both countries, these decisions also demonstrate how child welfare is closely connected to Indigenous assertions of and rights to self-government.
The Asper Centre Indigenous Rights Working Group is pleased to present a panel event to unpack the significant legal issues and potential future implications of these cases, with a focus on the Quebec Reference case and its meaning for the interpretation of Section 35 of the Constitution and Indigenous self-governance.
Panelists
Maggie Blackhawk (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe) is professor of law at NYU and a prize-winning scholar and teacher of federal Indian law, constitutional law, and legislation. Blackhawk was awarded the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize and her research has been published or is forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Supreme Court Review, American Historical Review, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Journal of the Early Republic, and Journal of Politics. Much of her scholarship explores the relationship between law and power, with a particular emphasis on the ways that subordinated peoples leverage law to shift power to their communities—especially outside of rights and courts-based frameworks. Her recent projects have focused on the laws and legal histories of American colonialism and the central role of the American colonial project, including the resistance and advocacy of Native and other colonized peoples, in shaping the constitutional law and history of the United States.
Sara Mainville is a partner at JFK Law LLP and has been a member of the Ontario bar since 2005 and she is a member of the BC bar (2022) with specific matter approvals to practice in Nunavut and Quebec. Sara has a Management/Public Administration degree (Lethbridge) and a Bachelor of Laws from Queen’s University. She has a LLM from the University of Toronto and an Advanced Negotiations certificate from Harvard University, and a Certificate in Entertainment Law (Osgoode PD). In 2014, Sara was elected as Chief of Couchiching First Nation after the sudden death of her friend and mentor, Chief Chuck McPherson. Sara uses this experience as a former Chief to help leadership work past difficult issues, within Indigenous forms of dispute resolution, and walk the community through processes to encourage discourse and grassroots solutions to long-held problems. Sara has completed Advanced Negotiations training at Harvard University and dispute resolution, legislative drafting, and mediation training at professional institutes in order to advance her clients’ long held goals for self-determination and truer treaty partnerships in Canada. Sara is generally seen as a subject-matter expert about Crown-Indigenous relations, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaty 3, and Anishinaabe Inakonigewin. However, Sara sees herself as a life-long learner willing to meet in community, read voraciously, and listen intently to better understand Indigenous knowledge systems across Canada.
John Borrows B.A., M.A., J.D., LL.M. (Toronto), Ph.D. (Osgoode Hall Law School), LL.D. (Hons., Dalhousie, York, SFU, Queen’s & Law Society of Ontario), D.H.L, (Toronto), F.R.S.C., O.C., is the Loveland Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Toronto Law School. His publications include, Recovering Canada; The Resurgence of Indigenous Law (Donald Smiley Award best book in Canadian Political Science, 2002), Canada’s Indigenous Constitution (Canadian Law and Society Best Book Award 2011), Drawing Out Law: A Spirit’s Guide (2010), Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism ((Donald Smiley Award best book in Canadian Political Science, 2016), The Right Relationship (with Michael Coyle, ed.), Resurgence and Reconciliation (with Michael Asch, Jim Tully, eds.), Law’s Indigenous Ethics (2020 Best subsequent Book Award from Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, 2020 W. Wes Pue Best book award from the Canadian Law and Society Association). He is the 2017 Killam Prize winner in Social Sciences and the 2019 Molson Prize Winner from the Canada Council for the Arts, the 2020 Governor General’s Innovation Award, and the 2021 Canadian Bar Association President’s Award winner. He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2020. John is a member of the Chippewa of the Nawash First Nation in Ontario, Canada.
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The Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture with Kim Murray
2025-02-25 17:00 - 18:30 | Jackman Law Building, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto 78 Queen’s Park, Room J140, 78 Queen's Park, Toronto, Ontario, 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, and to deliver the bi-annual Morris A.Gross Memorial Lecture.
The Asper Centre is pleased to convene the Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture for the law school community.

This year, Kimberly Murray will present the special lecture on Tuesday, February 25, 2025 at 5pm. Murray was the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools until December 2024 and is now an Associate Professor, Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Legal Studies at the Faculty of Law, Queen’s University.
Crimes Against Humanity and Indian Residential Schools in Canada

Abstract: The buildings, burials grounds, and cemeteries on the sites of former Indian Residential Schools are etched deeply in Survivors’ memories. Once places of silence and suffering, they are now sites of truth. Once places of brutal violence and genocide, they are now sites of conscience. Survivors can never forget the memories of trauma and death held in these sites; now Canada, and all Canadians, must do so as well by recognizing that genocide and crimes against humanity were perpetrated on Indigenous Peoples.

Kimberly Murray BA, LLB, LLM, IPC, LL.D. (honoris causa) commenced her new role as Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Legal Studies on January 1, 2025, after completing a federal appointment as the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites Associated with Indian Residential Schools.

Murray has dedicated much of her legal career to promoting reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people and advocating for Indigenous communities. She was the Province of Ontario’s first ever Assistant Deputy Attorney General for Indigenous Justice (2015-2022), where she worked to support communities revitalize their Indigenous laws and expanded legal services and programs for Indigenous people.

In 2018-2019, Murray chaired the Expert Panel on Policing in Indigenous Communities, which produced the report Toward Peace Harmony, and Well-Being: Policing in Indigenous Communities.

From 2010-2015, Murray was Executive Director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission working to ensure that Survivors were heard and remembered, and she promoted reconciliation across the country.
During her previous 15-year career with Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto, she was staff lawyer and then Executive Director, conducting numerous law reform and public legal education activities, and appeared before all levels of court.
She has also served on numerous boards, public committees, and councils; provided advocacy in high-profile public inquiries; published numerous works, position and conference papers; taught law and undergraduate students; and has been recognized with numerous awards.
Murray, is a member of Kanehsatà:ke Mohawk Nation, holds an LLM and LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School, a BA from Carleton, and honorary LLDs from Guelph/Humber, Lincoln Alexander School of Law, and the Law Society of Ontario.
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REGISTRATION REQUIRED
