Call for Conference Papers Charter Litigation and the Use of Social Science Evidence: After thirty years what have we learned? What could we do better? University of Toronto, St. George Campus – March 23& 24, 2012 The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights invites papers for its upcoming conference. This multi-disciplinary event will create opportunities ... Read More

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

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

The Asper Centre working groups aim to provide U of T students with an opportunity to conduct legal research and assist in advocacy on Canadian constitutional rights issues (often in partnership with an external organization). The Asper Centre requires all potential working groups (including existing working groups) to submit a written proposal for consideration by ... Read More

Dr. Pavlos Eleftheriadis (University Lecturer & Fellow in Law, University of Oxford) Abstract: The United Kingdom constitution endorses both parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law as constitutional principles of the highest rank. The relations between the two have been a source of great puzzles, legal and philosophical. In this paper Professor Eleftheriadis attempts to ... Read More

Prof. Wayne Sumner (Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of Toronto, expert witness on ethics in the Carter case) and Joseph Arvay, Q.C. (counsel for the plaintiffs in Carter and leading constitutional litigator) will reflect on the landmark British Columbia Supreme Court decision, Carter v Canada 2012 BCSC 886. Joseph J. Arvay, QC holds law degrees ... Read More

Helen Irving, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney Abstract: In this paper, I invite a reconceptualization of constitutional (as distinct from political) citizenship, by examining the legal practice, virtually universal between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, of the denaturalization of citizen women who married alien men. This practice, which emerged as a by-product of ... Read More

Andrew Geddis, Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Otago Abstract: This paper begins with the broader question of how a constitutional order based upon a liberal-democratic commitment to letting the people choose their lawmakers ought to respond to allegations of flaws in its election process. After all, any large-scale human undertaking is bound to fall ... Read More

Developments in Thirty Years of Fact Finding What have we learned? What could we do better? Event date: Friday, November 09, 2012, from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM Location: Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto Opening Plenary Panel: The Challenges for Judges Justice Robert Sharpe (Ontario Court of Appeal); Justice Susan Himel (Ontario ... Read More

Sanford Levinson W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair Professor of Government, School of Law University of Texas at Austin Event date: Wednesday, November 28, 2012, from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM Location: Rowell Room, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto Abstract: The Federalist is, without a doubt, ... Read More

Wojciech Sadurski, University of Sydney The most feasible conception of the common good is one that refers to the legitimate motives for proposing and enacting collective authoritative decisions, which can be applied to, and complied with by, those who do not necessarily agree with the substantive merits of those decisions. Concretization of such a conception ... Read More

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 ... Read More

The Honourable Lynn Smith The Quest for a Charter Equality Test: Has the Longest Way Round Been the Shortest Way Home? Watch the webcast here. Event date: Wednesday, February 27, 2013, from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM Location: Rowell Room, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto Lynn Smith, B.A. (University of Calgary), LL.B. ... Read More

Craig Scott Member of Parliament for Toronto-Danforth This lecture will discuss the structure and philosophy of the Supreme Court of Canada's approach to the dynamics of constitutional change, including the stages necessary to move from the democratic expression of a desire for change to lawful amendment of the Constitution. Scott will discuss his legislative proposal, ... Read More

Constitutional Roundtable Harney Program in Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies & Canada Research Chair in Citizenship and Multiculturalism  present Leti Volpp UC Berkeley School of Law The Indigenous as Alien Immigration law, as it is taught, studied, and researched in the United States, imagines away the fact of preexisting indigenous populations.  To show how this ... Read More

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 ... Read More

  Constitutional Roundtable presents Richard Stacey, Faculty of Law University of Toronto 12:30 - 2:00 p.m. Thursday, February 5, 2015 Room 101, Victoria College Constitutional Law in the Absence of Constitution: Power in the Revolutionary Interregnum In early February 2011, the Egyptian armed forces assumed executive control of Egypt and suspended the 1971 Constitution. A ... Read More

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 ... Read More

The Asper Centre's Immigration & Refugee Law Student Working Group is honoured to host Senator Ratna Omidvar for a lunchtime seminar on Wednesday March 7, 2018 at 12h30. All students are welcome and encouraged to attend. Senator Omidvar will share her personal story of coming to Canada from India, and she will discuss issues related to inclusion ... Read More

View the event photo gallery Read our "Celebrating 10 Years" Magazine Read the Asper Centre's 2017 - 2018 annual report Watch the video of the event on YouTube It's been a full decade since the Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights opened its doors! To celebrate 10 years of dedicated advocacy, education and research, former Supreme Court of ... Read More

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights & the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society were pleased to co-present  COVID-19 Contact Tracing and the Canadian Constitution   a FREE WEBINAR on Wednesday July 29, 2020 @12:00-1:30pm Contact tracing apps play an important role alongside human tracing in our public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to ensure that contact tracing apps infringe our Constitutional rights as little as possible, ... Read More

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ Constitutional Roundtables are an annual series of lunchtime discussion forums that provide an opportunity to consider developments in Canadian constitutional theory and practice. The Constitutional Roundtable series promotes scholarship and aims to make a meaningful contribution to intellectual discourse about Canadian and comparative constitutional law. Professor Michael Beenstock ... Read More