Constitutional Remedies: Are They Effective and Meaningful?
2014-02-28 08:30 - 17:00 (America/Toronto)
REGISTRATION NOW CLOSED
LINK TO LIVE WEBCAST
Keynote Address
For more information contact Kara Norrington at kara.norrington@utoronto.ca
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is hosting a conference examining in detail the remedies available in constitutional litigation.
Papers and panel discussions will stimulate and develop an ongoing dialogue on the effectiveness of remedies. The goal is to examine the available remedies pursuant to s.24 and s.52 of the Charter as well as remedies for the violation of Aboriginal and treaty rights under the constitution. Key themes include the following.
• Will the promise of the Ward Charter damage claim be realized? Issues related to the quantum of damages in relation to the costs and risks of litigation; the interaction between Charter and tort claims.
• The role of injunctions and declarations: Would/should the Supreme Court affirm supervisory jurisdiction as it did in Doucet Boudreau if it heard the case today; are injunctions necessary or will declarations suffice including in litigation with respect to conditions of confinement and positive rights? What can be learned from comparative experiences?
• Remedies for violations of Aboriginal and treaty rights: What are the remedies for breach of the duty to consult and are they meaningful and effective?
• Remedies for unconstitutional legislation: Are the courts employing the soft remedies of reading down and suspended declarations of invalidity too much?
Opening Plenary Debate: Be it resolved that Judges can rewrite statutes to make them constitutional
Debaters: Prof. Kent Roach and Prof. Hamish Stewart
Moderator: Hon. Justice Robert Sharpe, Ontario Court of Appeal
Keynote Speaker: Professor Sandra Liebenberg
H.F.Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law Department of Public Law Faculty of Law, University of Stellenbosch, SA
Accreditation: This program is worth 5.0 substantive hours and 0 professionalism hours.
Full Program Here

Deepening Democratic Transformation in South Africa Through Participatory Constitutional Remedies
2014-02-28 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Sandra Liebenberg
H.F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law
University of Stellenbosch Law Faculty
Deepening democratic transformation in South Africa through
participatory constitutional remedies

Prepared for Conference, Constitutional Remedies: Are they Effective and Meaningful?
David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, University of Toronto
There is an intimate association between the exercise of court’s remedial powers to address violations of constitutional rights and the particular animating purposes and ideals of the particular Constitution understood in its unique social and historical context. Expressed differently, cognisance of the relevant constitutional provisions and remedial powers vested in the courts tells us very little about the principles which should guide the crafting of remedies for violations of the rights enshrined in a constitution’s bill or charter of fundamental rights. In order to understand some of the most acute remedial challenges facing the South African courts in human rights litigation, it is necessary to provide an account first of the nature of the South African Bill of Rights, and the overall role it is designed to fulfil in the context of South African society. Thereafter I turn to examining the general principles which have been articulated in relation to the crafting of constitutional remedies. The third section draws on the general purposive account of the Constitution and the remedial principles identified to discuss one of the emerging remedial strategies of the Constitutional Court of South Africa – orders of meaningful engagement. I choose to focus on this particular remedy (one of a wide range of available constitutional remedies deployed by the South African courts) as it illustrates an innovative response to one of their most pressing challenges faced by the South African courts in designing constitutional remedies – namely how to give effect to the far-reaching positive obligations imposed by a range of provisions in the Bill of Rights. It also resonates with the deeper underlying values and purposes of the Constitution discussed in the first part of the paper. I consider the multi-faced nature of this remedy as it has been applied in various cases, particularly eviction and education rights cases, where, to date, the remedy has found its primary application. The relationship of meaningful engagement as a remedy with the criteria for assessing compliance with constitutional norms in the first phases of constitutional analysis (rights definition and limitations), and the features that distinguish it from the supervisory orders and structural interdictions/injunctions more familiar to constitutional lawyers are also considered. The final part of the paper evaluates the remedy and its potential to serve as a workable remedial mechanism for advancing the transformative commitments of the South African Constitution.
This is the lunchtime plenary for the conference, “Constitutional Remedies: Are They Effective and Meaningful?”

February 28th, 2014

Privacy at Risk?
2014-03-12 16:00 - 17:30
David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights and Centre for Innovation Law and Policy, Faculty of Law
present
Privacy at Risk?
The NSA and CSEC, its Canadian Surveillance Partner

Wednesday, March 12, 2014
4:00 – 5:30
Emmanuel College, 75 Queen’s Park Crescent
Room EM 001
Revelations by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden have drawn much needed attention to the involvement of governments, including the government of Canada, in internet spying. Recent focus has been place on the role that the Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC), an organization of which few Canadians are aware, plays in such surveillance, including spying on Canadians at airports using free Wi-Fi. What are the legal limits of this surveillance? What rights are impacted by the government when they engage in this activity? Experts from the Faculty of Law and the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Glob al Affairs will address what we know about what is happening, what laws apply, and what should concern us about the implications of this activity by governments around the world and in Canada.

Panelists:
Lisa Austin, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Kent Roach, Professor and Prichard Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy, Faculty of Law
Hamish Stewart, Professor, Faculty of Law
Christopher Parsons, Post-doctoral Fellow, Citizens Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs
Moderator:
Simon Stern, Associate Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Innovation Law & Policy, Faculty of Law

Clinic Applications Deadline
2014-07-07
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: DAVID ASPER CENTRE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (LAW391H1F) FALL 2013
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: HALF TERM CLINIC – WINTER 2014
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students wishing to apply for these courses must email a 1-2 page statement of interest to Cheryl Milne, cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca by July 7, 2014. Please indicate the following:
(a) previous upper-year courses in constitutional law or human rights law or experience that you consider to be equivalent (note pre/co-requisite for half-term clinic);
(b) indicators of academic, analytical and research and writing ability, which may include grades in related classes;
(c) any experience in human rights or constitutional issues;
(d) any experience with lawyering or advocacy;
(e) why you wish to enroll in the Clinic.
Successful applicants will be notified of admission in time for course registration prior to July 14, 2013.

Foreign Relations Law
2014-09-12 12:30 - 14:00
Campbell McLachlan, Q.C. Victoria University of Wellington Foreign Relations Law
Reviewer/Discussant:
Stephen Toope
Friday, September 12, 2014
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
What legal principles govern the external exercise of the public power of states within common law legal systems? Foreign Relations Law tackles three fundamental issues: the distribution of the foreign relations power between the or¬gans of government; the impact of the foreign relations power on individual rights; and the treatment of the foreign state within the municipal legal system. Focusing on the four Anglo-Commonwealth states (the United Kingdom, Aus¬tralia, Canada and New Zealand), McLachlan examines the interaction between public international law and national law and demonstrates that the prime function of foreign relations law is not to exclude foreign affairs from legal regulation, but to allocate jurisdiction and determine applicable law in cases involving the external exercise of the public power of states: between the organs of the state; amongst the national legal systems of different states; and between the national and the international legal systems.
Campbell McLachlan QC is Professor of International Law at Victoria University of Wellington. He is a New Zealand Law Foundation International Research Fel¬low and sometime Visiting Fellow at All Souls Col¬lege, Oxford. He has been President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law and taught at The Hague Academy of International Law. He is a member of Essex Court Chambers (London) and Bankside Chambers (Auckland & Singapore).
Stephen Toope recently stepped down after eight years as President and Vice-Chancellor of UBC. In January, he will become Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at U of T. He previously served as Dean of Law at McGill and President of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. He has written extensively on the interplay between domestic and international law, especially in the area of human rights.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

The Case Against 8 - Special Screening
2014-10-14 12:00 - 14:00
Battles Are Won Because They Are Fought!
The Case Against 8 is a behind-the-scenes look inside the historic case to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The high-profile trial first makes headlines with the unlikely pairing of Ted Olson and David Boies, political foes who last faced off as opposing attorneys in Bush v Gore. The film also follows the plaintiffs, two gay couples who find their families at the centre of the same-sex marriage controversy. Five years in the making, this is the story of how they took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the US Supreme Court.
Co-sponsored with Out in Law, and the International Human Rights Program.
Event date: Tuesday, October 14, 2014, from 12:10 PM to 2:00 PM
Location: Alumni Hall (VC 112), Victoria College, University of Toronto
View the Event Poster HERE.

Deadline: Call for Papers October 15, 2014
2014-10-15
The Interplay between Sections 7 and 15 of the Charter
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, St. George Campus – February 27, 2015
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference examining in detail the interplay between sections 7 and 15 of the Charter.
The Centre invites papers that stimulate and develop an ongoing exploration of the relationship between sections 7 and 15. Issues that can be addressed include:
• Is equality a principle of fundamental justice under section 7?
• How have the courts treated the two separate grounds for challenging government action?
• Are their strategic advantages to pleading both grounds or only one?
• How can different cases challenging the same law proceed differently based on the ground pleaded (e.g. Bedford and Downtown Eastside Sex Workers)?
• How does the relationship between the sections play out in circumstances such as mandatory minimum sentencing, challenges to the NCR provisions, human smuggling legislation?
Other conference topics may include issues such the role of individual choice in respect of both equality and liberty rights; harm or dignity as central themes; socio-economic rights or the rights of the poor; and arbitrariness as an element of the analysis under each section.
The papers will be utilized as the central themes on various panels across the one day conference and selected conference papers will be considered for publication as part of a special issue of the National Journal of Constitutional Law. Authors of papers chosen for presentation will be notified by November 1, 2014. Final (for the conference) papers are due by February 6, 2015.
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is a centre within the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law devoted to advocacy, research and education in the areas of constitutional rights in Canada. For more information about the Centre go to www.aspercentre.ca.
For those interested in participating, please send an abstract (max: 250 words) of your intended paper with a 1-2 paragraph biography to: Cheryl Milne at cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca
Deadline for Submissions: October 15, 2014

R v Kokopenace: The Panel
2014-10-15 12:30 - 14:00
The Aboriginal Law Program Speaker Series and the Constitutional Roundtable present:
“R v Kokopenace: The Panel”

Heard before the Supreme Court on October 6, 2014, R v Kokopenace is a case concerning the representativeness of jury panels in Ontario, particularly with respect to First Nations people living on-reserve and the role of s. 6(8) of the Juries Act. Issues in this case involve the constitutional right to an impartial jury, the meaning of representativeness, reasonable efforts required by the Crown to attain representativeness, and the appropriate remedy failing reasonable efforts. Join us for a panel of the parties (featured below), who will discuss their arguments to the Court and responses to questions posed by the Bench. Panelists include Brian Greenspan, Jessica Orkin, Cheryl Milne, Mary Eberts, Julian Roy and Christa Big Canoe.
View event poster here.
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
12:30-2pm
Alumni Hall, Victoria College, University of Toronto
Lunch provided. RSVP: n.gulezko@utoronto.ca

Wishful Thinking: The Supreme Court of Canada Looks at Canadian Democracy in the Charter Era
2014-11-18 12:30 - 14:00
Mary Eberts
Constitutional Litigator-in-Residence David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
University of Toronto
Moderator:
Yasmin Dawood
University of Toronto Faculty of Law
NOTE DATE CHANGE: Tuesday, November 18th 2014
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
MARY EBERTS received her legal education at Western and the Harvard Law School, and is a member of the Bar of Ontario. She joined a Bay St. law firm after several years of teaching at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, and was a partner at that firm until opening a small firm specializing in Charter and public law litigation. From this base in Toronto, she has appeared as counsel to parties and interveners in the Supreme Court of Canada, Courts of Appeal and Superior Courts in Ontario and other provinces, the Federal Court and Court of Appeal, and before administrative tribunals and inquests in Ontario and other provinces. She was active in securing the present language of section 15 of the Charter, and was one of the founders of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF). Since 1991, she has been litigation counsel to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC). Mary held the Gordon Henderson Chair in Human Rights at the University of Ottawa in 2004-2005 and the Ariel Sallows Chair in Human Rights at the College of Law, University of Saskachewan in 2011 and 2012, where she taught courses in test case litigation. Recognition of her work includes the Law Society Medal, the Governor-General’s Award in Honour of the Persons’ Case, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and several honourary degrees.

A light lunch will be provided.

For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.

Autonomy, Subsidiarity and Solidarity: The Foundations of Cooperative Federalism
2015-01-13 12:30 - 14:00
CONSTITUTIONAL ROUNDTABLE
presents
Hugo Cyr, Université du Québec à Montréal
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Solarium (room FA2), Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
What does the constitutional principle of federalism entail? Instead of a detailed set of specific rules, the principle of federalism relies on a series of principles that distinguish federations from other political forms. I propose that three such principles stand out from within our constitutional instruments and jurisprudence: autonomy, subsidiarity and federal solidarity. The combination of these three interrelated constitutional principles forms the normative structure that gives Canadian federalism its internal logic. And it is my contention that this internal logic is one of cooperative federalism. It is these principles that must guide the judiciary when it fulfills its special duty as “guardian of the Constitution”, and as such, as guardian of the principle of federalism.
Hugo Cyr, LL.B., B.C.L. (McGill), LL.M. (Yale), LL.D. (Université de Montréal). Full Professor, Director of Graduate Studies in Law, Faculty of Political Science and Law, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), is a member of the Quebec Bar and the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité au Québec (CRIDAQ). Hugo Cyr has been a law clerk to the Honorable Justice Ian Binnie of the Supreme Court of Canada, a Visiting Researcher at the European Academy of Legal Theory, a Boulton Fellow at McGill University and a Schell Fellow at the Yale Law School. Professor Cyr teaches and conducts research in constitutional law and legal theory.
A light lunch will be provided.
Read the Paper here.

Constitutional Roundtable- Richard Stacey
2015-02-05 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Richard Stacey, Faculty of Law University of Toronto
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Room 101, Victoria College
Constitutional Law in the Absence of Constitution: Power in the Revolutionary Interregnum
In early February 2011, the Egyptian armed forces assumed executive control of Egypt and suspended the 1971 Constitution. A group of academics was mandated to propose amendments to the Constitution which, once approved by referendum on 19 March, became Egypt’s ‘interim’ Constitution. A process for the drafting and adoption of a new constitution was initiated, and the 2012 Constitution was adopted by referendum in December 2012. The armed forces again assumed executive control in July 2013 and suspended the 2012 Constitution, with another new constitution approved at referendum in January 2014. During both periods of military control, it remains unclear what replaced the suspended Constitution as the country’s foundational legal instrument. The Egyptian case is an example of constitutional interregnum, where political authority is exercised in the apparent absence of any formal constitutional foundation for political authority. This paper focuses on these periods of constitutional interregnum, exploring through a number of contemporary and historical cases how the gap left by the suspension of a constitution during a period of constitutional replacement is filled. The paper argues that even without a formal written constitution, a governing body’s authority and the lawfulness of its conduct depends on adherence to supra-constitutional principles derived from the commitment to constitutional democracy itself. Because a democratic constitution claims to speak for the whole people, the law in force during the constitutional interregnum and which governs the drafting of a new constitution must, at least, treat all and each of the people as equals and affirm a democratic right to representation in the drafting process. Any meaningful claim to be exercising authority in the name of the people – a claim to the authority of popular sovereignty – implies a commitment to a set of principles capable of constraining and directing the groups or individuals who exercise authority. These principles provide a constitutional foundation for government and for the legal system during the interregnum, ensuring both a benchmark for lawful government and legal continuity.
Richard Stacey served as Director of Research at the Center for Constitutional Transitions at NYU Law until joining the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. He holds a PhD from New York University’s Institute for Law and Society and bachelors degrees in political theory and law from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He served as law clerk to Justice Kate O’Regan and Justice Bess Nkabinde at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and has taught courses in political theory, constitutional law, administrative law and human rights at the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town and the City University of New York Law School. In 2009 he was a research consultant during Kenya’s constitutional review process and has remained involved in constitutional transitions around the world, providing technical advice through the Center for Constitutional Transitions in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. His work has appeared in a number of journals of law and political theory, the multi-author reference work Constitutional Law of South Africa (of which he acts as co-editor), and in books on constitutional design, land reform, and women’s rights.
A light lunch will be provided.

Life, Liberty and Equality - Canadian-Style: The Interplay Between Sections 7 and 15 of the Charter
2015-02-27 09:00 - 14:00
This half-day conference examined in detail the interplay between sections 7 and 15 of the Charter.
Papers were presented that stimulated and developed an ongoing exploration of the relationship between sections 7 and 15. Issues addressed include:
• Is equality a principle of fundamental justice under section 7?
• How have the courts treated the two separate grounds for challenging government action?
• Are their strategic advantages to pleading both grounds or only one?
• Protecting marginalized groups.
• How does the relationship between the sections play out in circumstances such as challenges to mental health legislation?
Archived webcast CLICK HERE
Lunch Time Plenary: Carter v AG Canada – UofT’s Legal Experts Comment on the Decision
Speakers: Trudo Lemmens, Hamish Stewart, Sophia Moreau, Carol Rogerson, David Schneiderman, Denise Reaume
CONFERENCE AGENDA
Location: Alumni Hall, Victoria College, University of Victoria at the University of Toronto

Clinic Applications Deadline 2015
2015-07-10
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: DAVID ASPER CENTRE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS (LAW391H1F) FALL 2015
CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: HALF TERM CLINIC – WINTER 2016
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students wishing to apply for these courses must email a 1-2 page statement of interest to Cheryl Milne, cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca by noon on July 10, 2015. Please indicate the following:
(a) previous upper-year courses in constitutional law or human rights law or experience that you consider to be equivalent (note pre/co-requisite for half-term clinic);
(b) indicators of academic, analytical and research and writing ability, which may include grades in related classes;
(c) any experience in human rights or constitutional issues;
(d) any experience with lawyering or advocacy;
(e) why you wish to enroll in the Clinic.
Successful applicants will be notified of admission in time for the commencement of course registration.
Full course descriptions here.

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 - Tarunabh Khaitan
2015-09-29 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Tarunabh Khaitan Associate Professor and the Hackney Fellow in Law at Wadham College University of Oxford

12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Solarium, Falconer Hall
Topic: A Theory of Discrimination Law
Tarun Khaitan is an Associate Professor and the Hackney Fellow in Law at Wadham College. He is also an Associate Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub. He completed his undergraduate studies (BA LLB Hons) at the National Law School (Bangalore) between 1999-2004. He then came to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and completed his postgraduate studies (BCL with distinction, MPhil with distinction, DPhil) at Exeter College. Before joining Wadham, he was the Penningtons Student in Law at Christ Church. OUP has recently published his monograph entitled ‘A Theory of Discrimination Law’.

Book Launch - False Security by Prof Kent Roach and Craig Forcese
2015-10-08 18:00 - 20:00
All are welcome to attend the book launch for False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-Terrorism , the latest book by Professor Kent Roach from the University of Toronto – Faculty of Law and co-author Professor Craig Forcese, from the University of Ottawa – Faculty of Law. The book launch will be followed by a panel discussion with other esteemed panelists.
Panelists include:
Ron Atkey P.C., Q.C., first Chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee
Joe Fogarty, former UK government security liaison to Canada
Sukanya Pillay, General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Craig Forcese, Author and Associate Professor of Law, University of Ottawa
Kent Roach, Author and Professor of Law, University of Toronto
with Jonathan Kay from The Walrus as moderator.
Book Launch – False Security – Kent Roach and Craig Forcese
Location: Victoria College – 2nd Floor, Room 213 – 91 Charles St. West
(2015)

Constitutional Roundtable - Cristina Rodriguez
2015-10-14 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Cristina Rodriguez, Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law at  Yale Law School
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
Location: Victoria College, Room VC 115
The Power to Enforce the Law: Presidential Power and American Immigration Policy
In November 2014, President Obama announced his intention to dramatically reshape immigration law through administrative channels. Together with relief policies announced in 2012, his initiatives would shield over half the population of unauthorized immigrants from removal and enable them to work in the United States. These events have drawn renewed attention to the President’s power to shape immigration law. They also have reignited a longstanding controversy about whether constitutional limits exist on a central source of executive authority: the power to enforce the law.
In using the Obama relief policies to explore these dynamics, we make two central claims. First, it is futile to try to constrain the enforcement power by tying it to a search for congressional enforcement priorities. Congress has no discernible priorities when it comes to a very wide swath of enforcement activity—a reality especially true for immigration law today. The immigration code has evolved over time into a highly reticulated statute through the work of numerous Congresses and political coalitions. The modern structure of immigration law also effectively delegates vast screening authority to the President. Interlocking historical, political, and legislative developments have opened a tremendous gap between the law on the books and the law on the ground. Under these conditions, there can be no meaningful search for congressionally preferred screening criteria. Far from reflecting a faithful agent framework, then, immigration enforcement more closely resembles a two-principals model of policymaking—one in which the Executive can and should help construct the domain of regulation through its independent judgments about how and when to enforce the law.
Second, when exploring limits on the enforcement power, we should focus not on who benefits from enforcement discretion but on how the Executive institutionalizes its discretion. The Obama relief initiatives are innovative: they bind the exercise of prosecutorial discretion to a more rule-like decision-making process, constrain the judgments of line-level officials by subjecting them to centralized supervision, and render the exercise of enforcement discretion far more transparent to the public than is customary. These efforts to better organize the enforcement bureaucracy ultimately advance core rule of law values without undermining deterrence or legal compliance, as some critics have worried. Moreover, while our focus on discretion’s institutionalization requires contextualized judgments that may rarely translate into clear doctrinal rules to govern the enforcement power, we believe it is generally unnecessary and unwise to use constitutional law to limit the President’s authority over how to organize the enforcement bureaucracy.
Cristina M. Rodríguez was appointed Professor of Law at Yale Law School in January 2013. From 2011-2013, she served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice, and from 2004-2012 she was on the faculty at the NYU School of Law. Professor Rodriguez also has been a non-resident fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., a term member on the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Henry L. Stimson Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Before entering academia, she clerked for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge David S. Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Professor Rodriguez’s fields of research and teaching include immigration law; constitutional law and theory; administrative law and process; language rights and language policy; and citizenship theory. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, she earned a B.A. in History from Yale College in 1995, a Master of Letters in Modern History in 1998 from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 2000.

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

Deadline: Call for Papers - December 14, 2015
2015-12-14
The State of Canada’s Constitutional Democracy
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, St. George Campus – February 27, 2016
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference examining the state of Canada’s constitutional democracy. Dramatic changes have taken place in recent years at the national level in respect to the day to day functioning of our constitutional democracy. These changes impinge on the separation of powers, the rule of law and the supremacy of the constitution.
Examples include:

the operation of the House of Commons and the Senate and the functioning of committees in both Houses in respect to the quality of deliberation, reflection on questions of constitutionality generally, and in respect to specific policy areas such as national security and crime and punishment, as it impacts on mental health, violence against women,
the expansion and increased powers of the PMO
the appointment process to the Senate and the Supreme Court
the stance taken by the government to some aspects of the Constitution and the judiciary,
the government’s approach to information creation, retention and dissemination as well as sources of expertise and scientific knowledge, as it impacts on public policy areas such as health, climate change, resource development, Aboriginal education, women’s equality
the Court’s role to strike down legislation and critique government action and the government’s response to this such as the aftermath of the PHS case, Bedford and Carter, and the SCC’s declaration in Khadr.
the professional ethics applicable to the work of government lawyers in a more politicized environment
Our interest is examining these changes is to assess their impact on the norms and processes stipulated by our written Constitution as well as by fundamental constitutional principles and conventions.

This symposium is part of a broader analysis by the Asper Centre of the state of the rule of law and Canada’s constitutional democracy comprising background papers and additional workshops that will result in a final report.The papers will be utilized as the central themes on various panels across the one day symposium and selected conference papers will be considered for publication as part of a special issue of the National Journal of Constitutional Law. Authors of papers chosen for presentation will be notified by January 1, 2016 (extended). Papers for distribution at the conference must be submitted by February 6, 2016.
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights is a centre within the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law devoted to advocacy, research and education in the areas of constitutional rights in Canada. For more information about the Centre go to www.aspercentre.ca.
For those interested in participating, please send an abstract (max: 250 words) of your intended paper with a 1-2 paragraph biography to: Cheryl Milne at cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca

Deadline for Submissions: December 14, 2015 (EXTENDED)

Constitutional Roundtable - Raj Anand
2016-02-03 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Raj Anand
Constitutional Litigator in Residence with the Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Victoria College, Room 206
Topic: Subsection 15(2) of the Charter and its Disconnection with Substantive Equality
Raj Anand is a partner and an arbitrator and mediator with WeirFoulds LLP. His practice includes the areas of administrative, human rights, constitutional and employment law, civil litigation, professional negligence and regulation. In his third term as an elected Bencher of the Law Society, he is currently the Vice-Chair of the Law Society Tribunal’s Hearing Division. He was a member of task forces or working groups on admission requirements, articling, good character, Law Society governance and Tribunal reform. He was Vice Chair of the Equity and Aboriginal Issues Committee for five years, and is currently Co-Chair of the Working Group on Challenges faced by Racialized Lawyers and Paralegals in Ontario and Chair of the Three Year Review of the Tribunal reforms. Raj graduated from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law with the Dean’s Key in 1978. He has served as President of the U of T Law Alumni Council, the Minority Advocacy and Rights Council, the International Commission of Jurists Canada, and Pro Bono Law Ontario; Co-Chair of the U of T Tribunal; and board member of the Advocates’ Society, Legal Aid Ontario, the Law Commission of Ontario, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Justice for Children and Youth, and the Income Security Advocacy Centre. Raj was Chief Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission in 1988-89, Board of Inquiry from 1989-94, and founding Chair of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre in 2008-10. Raj has taught “The New Administrative Law” at the masters level, and “Legal Ethics: Legal Values” and “Diversity and the Legal Profession” at the JD level. He was the first recipient of the Advocates’ Society Award of Justice in 1997, and has since received the Law Society Medal, the Professional Man of the Year award of the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, and the South Asian Bar Association’s Distinguished Career Award. In 2013, he was an inaugural Roy McMurtry Visiting Clinical Fellow at Osgoode Hall Law School.

The State of Canada's Constitutional Democracy
2016-02-26 08:00 - 2016-02-27 17:00
SYMPOSIUM
February 26 – 27, 2016
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto (Room: Solarium, FA2)
The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, University of Toronto and the Centre for Constitutional Studies, University of Alberta, co-organized this symposium examining the state of Canada’s constitutional democracy. Dramatic changes have taken place in recent years at the national level in respect to the day to day functioning of our constitutional democracy. These changes impinge on the separation of powers, the rule of law and the supremacy of the constitution.
Examples of topics covered included:
• the operation of the House of Commons and the Senate and the functioning of committees in both Houses in respect to the quality of deliberation, reflection on questions of constitutionality generally, and in respect to specific policy areas,
• the increased powers of the PMO
• the appointment process to the Senate and the Supreme Court
• the stance taken by the government to some aspects of the Constitution and the judiciary,
• the government’s approach to information creation, retention and dissemination as well as sources of expertise and scientific knowledge, as it impacts on public policy areas such as health, climate change, resource development, Aboriginal education, women’s equality
• the Court’s role to strike down legislation and critique government action and the government’s response to this such as the aftermath of the PHS case, Bedford and Carter, and the SCC’s declaration in Khadr.
• the professional ethics applicable to the work of government lawyers in a more politicized environment
Our interest in examining these changes was to assess their impact on the norms and processes stipulated by our written Constitution as well as by fundamental constitutional principles and conventions.
This symposium was part of a broader analysis by the Asper Centre of the state of the rule of law and Canada’s constitutional democracy comprising background papers and additional workshops that resulted in a now available final report.
Symposium Agenda
READ MORE ABOUT THE SYMPOSIUM HERE

Constitutional Roundtable - Susan Williams
2016-02-29 12:30 - 14:00
Constitutional Roundtable
presents
Susan Williams
Walter W. Foskett Professor of Law and Director, Center for Constitutional Democracy Maurer School of Law Indiana University
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Solarium, Falconer Hall
Topic
Legal Pluralism, Gender Equality and Parity of Participation: Constitutional Issues Concerning Customary Law in Liberia
Susan Williams is the author of Truth, Autonomy, and Speech: Feminist Theory and the First Amendment (NYU Press 2004). Her current book project, Constituting Equality: Comparative Constitutional Law and Gender Equality, is a collection of essays growing out of a spring 2007 conference she organized. She has also written numerous articles on constitutional law and feminist legal theory. She is actively involved in constitutional advising for the Burmese democracy movement. She is a constitutional advisor to the Women’s League of Burma, the Federal Constitution Drafting Coordinating Committee, and the state constitution drafting committees of all of the states of Burma. In this capacity, she teaches workshops, produces educational materials, and works on drafting and revising constitutional language. At Indiana Law, Williams teaches Property, First Amendment Law, Feminist Jurisprudence, and a seminar on Comparative Constitutional Law on Gender Equality. She believes that the best lawyers do not conduct legal analysis in a vacuum. “We must train our students to think and argue clearly and critically,” she says. “But at the same time, we must encourage them to bring their own values and experiences to bear on the legal issues they are studying. Law is a mirror in which we can read our character as a society, both as it presently exists and as we would ideally like it to be.”(Bio drawn from Susan Williams’ profile at Maurer School of Law)

Constitutional Roundtable - Richard Albert
2016-03-15 12:30 - 14:00
Richard Albert
Associate Professor of Law and Dean’s Research Scholar at Boston College
12:30 – 2:00 p.m.
Tuesday, March 15, 2016
Solarium, Falconer Hall
The Conventions of Constitutional Amendment in Canada
Commentators have suggested that the unsuccessful national referendum to ratify the 1992 Charlottetown Accord has created an expectation of popular participation requiring national referendal consultation in major reforms to the Constitution of Canada. In this Article, I inquire whether federal political actors are bound by a constitutional convention of national referendal consultation for formal amendments to the basic structure of the Constitution of Canada. Drawing from the Supreme Court of Canada’s Patriation Reference, I suggest that we cannot know whether federal political actors are bound by such a convention until they are confronted with the question whether or not to hold a national referendum in connection with a change to the Constitution’s basic structure. I conclude by suggesting, perhaps counterintuitively, that layering a conventional requirement of national referendal consultation onto the existing requirements for formal amendments to the Constitution’s basic structure could well undermine democracy, despite our common association of referenda with democratic legitimacy.
Richard Albert is an Associate Professor at Boston College Law School, where he specializes in constitutional law and comparative constitutional law. He holds degrees from Yale University, Oxford University, and Harvard University.

Clinic Information Session
2016-03-30 12:30 - 14:00
This information session for University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students, provides information on how to enroll in the for credit clinical programs at the Faculty including the Asper Centre Constitutional Rights Advocacy Clinic. Representatives from Downtown Legal Services, the International Human Rights Program and the various externship programs will be on hand to answer your questions.
This is a bring-your-own-lunch event. Room location is yet to be confirmed.

(2016)

Work for the Asper Centre
2016-04-18 08:00 - 17:00
PROGRAM COORDINATOR
POSITION DESCRIPTION:
The Program Coordinator will support the educational mission of the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights by organizing educational events such as conferences, roundtables and symposia; coordinating publications which promote the Centre and provide educational content to students, academics, the practising bar and the general public; and supporting the work of volunteer students in working groups focused on particular issues in constitutional law in Canada.
QUALIFICATIONS:
(Minimum)
Education:
Bachelor’s Degree or an acceptable equivalent combination of education and experience. A Law degree (LLB or JD) or graduate degree in constitutional or human rights law (MA) is highly desirable.
Experience:
Minimum 2 years’ experience related to program design, implementation and coordination, preferably in the area of human rights
Demonstrated experience coordinating a volunteer-based program
Demonstrated experience working closely with students or young professionals
Understanding of Canadian constitutional and human rights law and institutions
Understanding of law schools and the legal profession
Experience with public outreach through newsletters, web design, social media, blogs, etc.
Ability to work with and motivate diverse stakeholders, including law students; faculty; and community partners such as inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (in Canada), and other civil society actors
Demonstrated commitment to human rights and social justice
Skills:
Excellent computer skills with Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications. Proven skill in organizing and maintaining web pages and social media presence. Bilingual in French strongly preferred.
Other:
Excellent administrative and organizational skills, including problem solving and ability to manage conflicting priorities and deadlines
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Excellent relationship building skills, including ability to work independently and in a team
Strong attention to detail
Ability to positively represent the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights and the Faculty of Law at all times, and maintain existing relationships with partnerships and collaborations with diverse external stakeholders
Willingness to be flexible with work hours as the programs and deadlines demand, including working some overtime, and including travel in Canada

APPOINTMENT DETAILS:
This posting is for a part-time (60%) appointment ending two years from the date of hire. There is a possibility of renewal for one additional year
This position is part of the United Steelworkers Union Local 1998 employee group
The pro-rated hiring rate is $31,895.40 with an annual step progression to a maximum of $40,788.60

HOW TO APPLY:
Please visit the following link and click the “Apply Online” button:
https://utoronto.taleo.net/careersection/10000/jobdetail.ftl?job=1600392
Job posting close date: April 18, 2016
—
Canada’s leading teaching and research university, the University of Toronto is recognized as one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers, and one of Canada’s Top Employers for Canadians Over 40. U of T offers employees challenging work, flexible, family-friendly programs and opportunities for professional and career development. To learn more about the University of Toronto, please go to http://www.utoronto.ca/. To learn more about U of T as a place to work and develop a career, please visit http://www.hrandequity.utoronto.ca/
The University of Toronto is strongly committed to diversity within its community and especially welcomes applications from visible minority group members, women, Aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, members of sexual minority groups, and others who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas.

Clinical Legal Education Conference
2016-07-10 08:00 - 2016-07-13 17:00
THE RISKS AND REWARDS OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION PROGRAMMES
The Asper Centre is collaborating with the Association for Canadian Clinical Education and the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education in the organization and hosting of the 2016 Clinical Legal Education Conference at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law.
Dates: July 10- 13, 2016
Registration open here on the Eventbrite page. Early Bird Registration closes on April 30 (regular price applies after that date).
Read the Conference Brochure

Working Group Call for Proposals
2016-08-15
2016-2017 WORKING GROUPS
University of Toronto, Faculty of Law students wishing to propose a 2016/2017 Working Group must email a proposal to Cheryl Milne, cheryl.milne@utoronto.ca by 5 p.m. on August 15, 2016. Applications should include the following:
a) The name/title of the Working Group
b) The issue the group will be working on, and why the issue is important
c) Name(s) of the student leader(s) and brief background information
d) Name and description of partnership organization, and letter of support from the organization (if applicable)
e) Description of proposed research or advocacy project for the year, including project goals and expected outcomes.
Successful groups will be notified prior to the start of term.
For more detailed information on how to lead a Working Group, read the full call for proposals here.

Call for Asper Centre students 2016/2017
2016-08-26
The deadline for applications for the is August 26, 2016.
Call for Asper Centre students 2016-2017

Asper Centre at Law Clubs week
2016-09-13
Visit the Asper Centre’s information booth to learn more about our work.

(2016)

Asper Centre Information Session
2016-09-15 12:30
Learn how to apply for an Asper Centre summer fellowship to work in an organization within Canada that focuses on constitutional / human rights advocacy.

(2016)
