Access to Justice
-
March 20, 2024
Take this job and keep it
Telling your boss to take their job and shove it sure may be satisfying in the heat of the moment but it likely comes with unexpected consequences.
-
March 19, 2024
AI: A time to embrace | Connie L. Braun
Recently, I rediscovered Pete Seeger’s song, Turn, Turn, Turn which features the lyrics, “To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.” Viewing various performances via YouTube (this one is my favourite), I have found myself considering how a time and place for everything applies in this day and age with so many questions about and distrust of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Of particular note in the lyrics, especially as it relates to the effect AI is having and will continue to have on our lives is,“ A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing.” I am thinking that it is a time to embrace.
-
March 19, 2024
Ottawa appeals declaration of constitutional requirement for timely federal judicial appointments
“Stay in your lane” — those words might encapsulate the thrust of the federal government’s message to the Federal Court in Ottawa's appeal of a recent groundbreaking judgment, which declared that the prime minister and federal justice minister are constitutionally obliged to fix the lengthy federal judicial appointment delays that have for years bedeviled litigants, lawyers and judges.
-
March 18, 2024
Appeal and judicial review of a tribunal decision | Sara Blake
The Supreme Court of Canada has breathed life into an Ontario statutory provision that has been mostly ignored since it came into effect in 1972. Section 2(1) of the Judicial Review Procedure Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. J.1 (JRPA), authorizes the Divisional Court to grant relief on judicial review “despite any right of appeal.” For 40 years, Ontario courts consistently overlooked this provision, instead preferring to exercise their discretion to deny a remedy on judicial review because it regards a right of appeal to the court as an adequate alternative remedy.
-
March 15, 2024
Cross-generational Indigenous trauma | Tony Stevenson
It is the year 2024 and the last residential school closed in 1998. Fellow First Nations demand that the school grounds be thoroughly investigated for the identity of the thousands of anomalies that have been found through radar ground searches. Several non-First Nations also want those anomalies to be verified as well so that their own opinions of these residential stories were made up to get government money. Unfortunately, their intentions are that of a very negative opinion that has been drummed up by their own inherited ignorance from the generations that came before them.
-
March 15, 2024
Supreme Court rules limited statutory rights of appeal do not preclude access to judicial review
In a 9-0 judgment supportive of litigants’ access to judicial review, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a limited statutory right of appeal in a case does not preclude judicial review for matters not the subject of appeal, i.e. where there is an appeal right limited to questions of law, judicial review is available for questions of fact or mixed fact and law.
-
March 14, 2024
Parental alienation cases: Challenges and realities
An increasing number of high conflict separations involve children resisting contact with a parent, cases that pose significant risks for harm to children, as well as substantial challenges for the courts, and lawyers and their clients. The National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) advocates prohibition of the use of “parental alienation” in these cases, claiming that it is an unscientific “pseudo-concept” that causes family courts to lose sight of the child’s best interests. NAWL correctly points out that the Canadian justice system needs to do a better job of dealing with intimate partner violence.
-
March 14, 2024
FCA upholds refusal to certify class action against Ottawa alleging discriminatory immigration fees
The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the non-certification and striking out of claims of a proposed class action which contends that certain application fees for Canadian citizenship and permanent residence are analogous to a discriminatory “head tax” on those not born in Canada, in violation of the Charter’s s. 15(1) equality rights guarantee.
-
March 12, 2024
More jails? | Norman Douglas
There are more than 60 retired Ontario Court judges on our private chat line. Most of us are wiser than when we were appointed. We have over a thousand years of hands-on experience in crime and punishment.
-
March 12, 2024
Nova Scotia funding local groups in fighting gender-based violence
Nova Scotia is using its participation in a national gender violence action plan to fund more than a dozen front-line organizations in the province.