It appears that President Obama is very close to nominating a replacement for Justice Stevens of the United States Supreme Court. The ninety-year-old Justice will end his career at the finish of the current court term, this July, and there is speculation that a nominee will be announced this coming week. As expected, the route [...]

A Very Long Deliberation The Supremes continue to deliberate their decision in a case that could “blow the veil of secrecy off the Afghan detainee affair, ex-MP Rahim Jaffer’s curious plea bargain and any number of like controversies,” The Globe and Mail’s Kirk Makin reported this week. The case, Ministry of Public Safety and Security [...]

Quebec Premier Jean Charest made quite a splash last month when his government tabled Bill 94, legislation that would require anyone providing or receiving government services to do so with their face uncovered. (See coverage in the Globe, the Toronto Star, and the National Post.) The legislation takes direct aim at Muslim women who wear the [...]

House Passes Bill Requiring Bilingual Appointees to SCC A NDP private member’s bill requiring that any future appointee to the Supreme Court “understands French and English without the assistance of an interpreter” passed the House last week, drawing unusually public criticism from a former justice. Bill C-232, introduced by NDP official languages critic Yvon Godin, [...]

Vatican May Invoke Sovereign Immunity in Defence of Pope As prominent Catholic bishops rush to defend Pope Benedict amid further reports of past sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, Vactian lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as a head of state in their defence of a potential class-action suit, the AP reported. [...]

Coulter v. Canada “Our usually calm Canadian neighbors are screaming at each other and one American woman has everything to do with it,” the Associated Press declared this week in its coverage of the Ann Coulter affair. Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly called protesters’ behaviour “un-Canadian.” Ezra Levant agreed. Now several days after the infamous letter, the camel comment and the [...]

U.S. Anti-Corruption Law Hurting Haiti’s Re-building Efforts? A throwaway line near the end of an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this week has got bloggers buzzing about whether a U.S. anti-corruption law may be deterring foreign investment in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, thus inhibiting the small island nation’s efforts to rebuild itself. WSJ editorial board member Mary [...]

Old Legal Debts and the Indian Act The Financial Legal Post’s Julius Melnitzer says that Borden Ladner Gervais’ [BLG] appeal in Borden & Elliot v. Temagami First Nation “is shaping up as potentially embarrassing to BLG, if not downright ugly.” Others might put it more strongly, actually, in that BLG’s alleged bad faith respecting the [...]

SCOTUS chief to (not) retire Breaking news: John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the United States, is retiring “for personal reasons,” Radar online reported yesterday. Actually, just kidding! Radar, known more for following Hollywood celebrities than Supreme Court justices, retracted the story less than an hour later, but not before it had ricocheted across the Web: The Huffington [...]

SCC Poised for Retirement Boom In case you weren’t keeping track, seven of the Supremes will be eligible to retire by next year. “The impending retirements could give Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or whoever succeeds him as prime minister, a rare opportunity to overhaul the top court’s composition and thereby perhaps influence or reshape the [...]