This case will not win a Golden Gavel any time soon; that, I can assure you. There is no crying victim or menacing villain. Had it not been for one peculiar fact, this case would be very typical of its jurisdiction. This case is unusual because the accused absconded (presumably returning to Germany), and his [...]

The SCC is currently considering the very modern problem of Alexandre Dubé’s capital gains tax woes. As a member of the Obejiwan First Nation (as defined by the Indian Act R.S.C. 1985, c.I-5), living on a reserve in Quebec, many of Mr. Dubé’s sources of income are exempt from federal and provincial taxation schemes. He [...]

Over the holidays, in a series of concurrently released decisions, the Supreme Court of Canada considered how a citizen could sue the Crown to financially recover on a wrong committed by an administrative decision maker. The question before the Court was whether one may bring the action directly, or did the lawfulness of the Crown’s [...]

Fair is foul, and foul is fair: an overview The latest development in the David and Goliath saga that is The Canadian Government v. Alan N. Young is as intriguing as always, yet also somewhat disheartening. It pits Osgoode’s venerable criminal law professor in his role as Co-Founder/Director of the Innocence Project, an organization that [...]

In light of the Omar Khadr affair, this post will provide a brief overview of the royal prerogative power over foreign affairs. As discussed in previous posts on TheCourt.ca (here, here, here and here), the SCC’s interpretation of the government’s prerogative over foreign affairs limited the judiciary’s ability to force the Canadian government to repatriate [...]

Last week, the SCC dismissed the appeal of Robert Pickton in R. v. Pickton, 2010 SCC 32 [Pickton II], upholding the majority decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in R. v. Pickton, 2009 BCCA 299 [Pickton I]. The SCC affirmed that impugned jury instructions did not negatively impact the fairness of the trial, [...]

On December 17 of last year, the Supreme Court of Canada handed down its decision in R. v. Dudley, 2009 SCC 58, which dealt with some of the finer points of criminal procedure; specifically, in the case of “hybrid” or “dual procedure” offences, whether the Crown’s invalid election to proceed summarily outside of the limitation period voids [...]

The only surprising thing about the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Quebec (Revenue) v. Caisse populaire Desjardins de Montmagny, 2009 SCC 49, is that the Quebec Superior Court at first instance found in favour of the Crown in all three cases from which the appeals arose. The issue in C.P. Desjardins de Montmagny [...]

As the federal and provincial governments rolled out their vaccination programs for H1N1 flu last week, health ministers, doctors, and other government representatives have all been answering questions about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. There has recently been much debate about the wisdom and effectiveness of population-wide vaccination: for example, see this month’s cover story [...]

It appears Canadian citizenship isn’t worth as much as we might like to think. The sagas of Abousfian Abdelrazik, Suaad Haji Mohamud, and Omar Khadr demonstrate that, if the government thinks you’re a terrorist, you’ll need to get most of the Canadian public onside before the Department of Foreign Affairs will consider helping you. While [...]