Because our liberal constitutional order claims the authority of a universal principle, it must spread and occupy every corner of society, colonising our speech and even how we think about every question of law and morality.
Pierre Trudeau’s constitutional reforms went right for the pre-Enlightenment heart, injecting the adrenaline of the American and French revolutions into our sleepy constitutional compromise. For the first time in a Westminster parliamentary system, the principles of government were written down and the abstract notion of universal rights was elevated above the sovereignty of parliament.
Why have some on the Right abandoned the traditional conservative skepticism about placing policy decisions in the hands of the legal profession?
Danielle Smith’s political gambit and the spectacularly inappropriate public musings of Alberta’s viceroy could compound and build into a perfect storm of unconstitutionality. That is, if one or the other doesn’t reconsider her position.
Political scientist Geoffrey Sigalet joins Hub Dialogues to discuss the “dialogue” between the government and the courts and what he hopes to achieve with the new Centre for Constitutional Law and Legal Studies.
Tulane University law professor Amy Gajda joins Hub Dialogues to discuss the trade-offs between free speech and privacy in our interconnected social media age, including the tensions between the public’s right to know and the individual’s right to be left alone.
allowing judges to extend parole ineligibility in a flexible manner would provide the means for Parliament to reassert its control over sentencing policy, while also continuing to improve criminal justice sentencing policy rather than simply gainsaying an erroneous judicial decision.
This episode of Hub Dialogues features leading British social justice barrister and activist David Renton on why achieving justice actually requires fewer laws and a smaller state.
The Free Alberta strategy with its Alberta Sovereignty Act may be an appealing proposal to some aggrieved Albertans, but it is a flagrantly unserious and unworkable solution to real and persistent problems.
Canadian lawyer and legal thinker Asher Honickman joins Hub Dialogues to discuss the influence of the so-called “Living Tree” doctrine, Canada’s Originalist tradition, and the policy and political consequences of these two judicial approaches.
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