Congress Wants the Last Word on Health Care Reform The celebrations did not last long. Before you even finish saying, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Congress has already started jostling to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision. Less than two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the United States kept the Act intact, thereby allowing [...]

Conflict with the Covenant: German Court Bans Religious Circumcision After a medical complication arising in a circumcision performed on a four year old Muslim boy, a Cologne court ruled that circumcising young boys on religious grounds equated with bodily harm – even if the parents had consented to the practice. In this decision, the court [...]

(No, we are not tooting our own horn.) The Supreme Court of the United States’ decision on health care reform last Thursday is surely one of the most important decisions of the century. President Obama, who proposed the law amidst a firestorm of controversy in 2010, seemed cautiously victorious. Despite quashing the individual mandate provision [...]

Supreme Court Hears Appeal from First Man Convicted under the Anti-Terrorism Law This week, the Supreme Court of Canada is hearing an appeal from Momin Khawaja, the first man to be convicted under the country’s anti-terror law (Anti-terrorism Act, SC 2011, c 41). This case has drawn much attention from media in Canada as well [...]

On May 24, 2012, the Ontario Court of Appeal (ONCA) released a sensitive and nuanced judgment that promises to polarize opinions and provide plenty of fodder for thought regarding the handling of criminally accused mentally ill persons. On the one hand, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) v Ontario, 2012 ONCA 342 (“CAMH”), [...]

The clichéd David vs. Goliath depiction is one which is often used when describing legal cases. But Ecuador’s Lago Agrio community vs. the Chevron Corporation is one legal battle which aptly fits the analogy. The controversial case has a long history, involving alleged environmental violations in Ecuador’s Amazon region by Texaco (now Chevron) from 1964 [...]

(The Mabior and D.C. appeals will be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada tomorrow. As the highest court prepares to hear arguments on the appropriate legal response to HIV non-disclosure, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network–an intervener in this case–has brought the intricacies of its argument to TheCourt.ca. Read Part 1 of the position the [...]

On February 8, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear Crown appeals in two cases that will determine whether and when people living with HIV are to be treated as rapists under Canadian law. In R. v. Mabior, 2010 MBCA 93, and R. v. D.C., 2010 QCCA 2289, the Manitoba and Quebec Courts of Appeal, [...]

This post is one of two winning papers submitted by JD students at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University as a written assignment for Prof. Richard Haigh’s State and Citizen course. In its 2007 ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada addressed the controversies regarding interjurisdictional immunity in Canadian Western Bank v The Queen in Right [...]

Section 7: Life, Liberty and Security of the Person in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side The claimants in (case) having failed to establish that the criminal prohibitions on possession and trafficking in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, S.C. 1996, c. 19 (CDSA) are constitutionally invalid, as discussed in a previous post, made three Charter claims, [...]