scholarly journals Back to Burgess: The Impact of the White Burgess Expert Evidence Regime in Alberta Decisions

2019 ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Lisa A. Silver
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Expert Evidence ◽  
Trial Judge ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Agent Of Change ◽  
The Impact

The law on the admissibility of expert evidence was refined in the Supreme Court of Canada’s White Burgess decision. While still retaining the Mohan criteria, the Supreme Court further defined the trial judge as an agent of change through an enhanced gatekeeper function. However, all stakeholders in the justice system have a gatekeeper function and must work together when determining the use to be made of evidence. Through surveying Alberta cases involving expert evidence, the author identifies areas where lower courts are applying the new approach and where they do not fully embrace the new approach, but revert back to the traditional Mohan criteria. The author discusses notable themes from recent case law to identify potential future issues involving expert evidence. Although slowly, Alberta courts are applying the new regime, and the focus and direction of expert evidence continue to develop.

The concept of human dignity in the case-law of the Supreme Court of Canada on Charter Equality Rights

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (5) ◽  
pp. 118-137
Author(s):  
Tatiana Vasilieva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Equality Rights ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Additional Burden ◽  
The Impact

This article explores the evolution of the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to the application of the concept of human dignity in constitutional equality cases. Traditionally, in human rights cases, this concept serves only to strengthen the argument, to show that the violation affects the person’s intrinsic worth. It is only in Canada and in South Africa that there is experience in applying the concept as a criterion for identifying discrimination. In 1999, in Law v. Canada, the Supreme Court recognized the purpose of Article 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms of 1982 to be the protection of human dignity and stated that discrimination must be established based on assessment of the impact of a program or law on human dignity. However, in 2008, in R. v. Kapp, the Court noted that the application of the concept of human dignity creates difficulties and places an additional burden of prove on the plaintiff. It is no coincidence that victims of discrimination have preferred to seek protection before human rights tribunals and commissions, where the dignity-based test is not used. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the use of the concept of human dignity as a criterion for identifying discrimination. The unsuccessful experience of applying the concept of human dignity as legal test has demonstrated that not every theoretically correct legal construction is effective in adjudication.

Slovo of the National School of Judges of Ukraine

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Judicial Reform ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Judicial Practice ◽  
National School ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Grand Chamber ◽  
The Impact

The special edition of the national professional scientific and practical legal magazine “The Slovo of the National School of Judges of Ukraine” was published, which contains reports delivered at the online conference "Ensuring the unity of judicial practise: the legal positions of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court and standards of the Council of Europe", held on the occasion of the third anniversary of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court. time of thematic sessions and webinars for judges of each of the courts of cassation in the Supreme Court, as well as joint sessions for judges of different jurisdictions at the end of 2020. The National School of Judges of Ukraine held these events together with the Supreme Court and in synergy with the Council of Europe projects "Support to Judicial Reform in Ukraine", "Further Support for Ukraine's Implementation in the Context of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights", USAID New Justice Program, OSCE Project Coordinator in Ukraine. These are projects that support various aspects of judicial reform in Ukraine, compliance with Council of Europe standards and recommendations, offering best practices from member states to help make priorities in the national reform process. The conference and training events were attended by more than 550 participants - judges of the Supreme Court, other courts, leading Ukrainian and foreign experts, representatives of the legal community. Trainers and all structural subdivisions of the National School of Judges of Ukraine were involved, the training activities of which were identified by the CCEJ in one of its conclusions as one of the important tools to ensure the unity of judicial practice. Programs of activities included reports on the role of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in ensuring the unity of judicial practice and the impact on the legal system; unity of judicial practice in the context of standards - improving access to justice in Ukraine: removing procedural obstacles and ensuring the right to an impartial court, approaches to identifying cases of minor complexity and cases of significant public interest or exceptional importance for a party in the context of access to court of cassation: practice the supreme courts of the member states of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights; key positions of the Supreme Court - application of the provisions of the procedural codes on the grounds for transferring the case to the Chamber, the joint chamber or the Supreme Court, the impact of its decisions on legislative activity, ensuring the specialization of courts and judges, the practice of the Supreme Court of the Supreme Court on administrative cases, the practice of considering cases of disciplinary liability of judges, conclusions on the rules of criminal law, review of court decisions in criminal proceedings in exceptional circumstances; the impact of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on the case law of national courts and the justification of court decisions and the "balance of rights" in civil cases in its practice, the development of the doctrine of human rights protection; ECtHR standards on evidence and the burden of proof, the conclusions of the CCEJ and their reflection in judicial practice; judicial rule-making in the activities of European courts of cassation, etc. The issues raised are analyzed in the Ukrainian and international contexts from report to report, which, we hope, will be appreciated by every lawyer - both practitioners and theorists. As well as the fact that the depth of disclosure of each of the topics through the practice of application serves the development of law and contributes to the formation of the unity of judicial practice of the Supreme Court, the creation of case law is a contribution to rulemaking and lawmaking. The conversion of intellectual discourse into the practice of Ukrainian courts is an important step towards strengthening public confidence in the judiciary. And here the unifying force of the Supreme Court can be especially important, as the Chairman of the Supreme Court Valentyna Danishevska rightly remarked, speaking about the expectations of the society.

6. The Doctrine of Judicial Precedent

2019 ◽  
pp. 160-195
Author(s):  
James Holland ◽  
Julian Webb
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Stare Decisis ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Legal Problems ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Pure Case ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Court Of Appeal

This chapter examines the use of case law to solve legal problems. In the study and practice of law we seek to analyse legal principles; and the ‘principles’ in English law are derived from pure case law or from case law dealing with statutes. The discussions cover the idea of binding precedent (stare decisis); establishing the principle in a case; the mechanics of stare decisis; whether there are any other exceptions to the application of stare decisis to the Court of Appeal that have emerged since 1944; whether every case has to be heard by the Court of Appeal before it can proceed to the Supreme Court; precedent in the higher courts; other courts; and the impact of human rights legislation.

scholarly journals Private Prosecutions in Mauritius: Clarifying Locus Standi and Making the Director of Public Prosecutions more Accountable

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Jamil Ddamulira Mujuzi
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Case Law ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Locus Standi ◽  
Statutory Requirement ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

Case law shows that private prosecutions have been part of Mauritian law at least since 1873. In Mauritius there are two types of private prosecutions: private prosecutions by individuals; and private prosecutions by statutory bodies. Neither the Mauritian constitution nor legislation provides for the right to institute a private prosecution. Because of the fact that Mauritian legislation is not detailed on the issue of locus standi to institute private prosecutions and does not address the issue of whether or not the Director of Public Prosecutions has to give reasons when he takes over and discontinues a private prosecution, the Supreme Court has had to address these issues. The Mauritian Supreme Court has held, inter alia, that a private prosecution may only be instituted by an aggrieved party (even in lower courts where this is not a statutory requirement) and that the Director of Public Prosecutions may take over and discontinue a private prosecution without giving reasons for his decision. However, the Supreme Court does not define “an aggrieved party.” In this article the author takes issue with the Court’s findings in these cases and, relying on legislation from other African countries, recommends how the law could be amended to strengthen the private prosecutor’s position.

Part IV Federalism, A Federalism in Canada, Ch.18 From Dualism to Cooperative Federalism and Back?: Evolving and Competing Conceptions of Canadian Federalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaudreault-DesBiens Jean-François ◽  
Poirier et Johanne
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Canadian Federalism ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Law ◽  
Cooperative Federalism ◽  
The Impact

This chapter documents the evolution from a dualist—“watertight compartments”—conception of Canadian federalism, to one that must acknowledge an increased number of intergovernmental cooperative ventures. It first examines Canada’s fundamentally dualist federal architecture before looking at the empirical reality of cooperative federalism which frequently challenges this structural dualism. It then considers how the rise of cooperative federalism influenced the evolution of the interpretive doctrines underpinning the law of Canadian federalism. Finally, it analyses the normative strength and scope of cooperative federalism, concluding that the impact of cooperative federalism in Canadian constitutional law remains tamed by the dualist conception of federalism that still underlies the Supreme Court of Canada’s federalism case law.

The ‘Range of Reasonable Responses’ Test: A Poor Substitution for the Statutory Language

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Baker
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Unfair Dismissal ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Borough Council ◽  
Supreme Court Case ◽  
As If

Abstract The ‘range of reasonable responses’ (RORR) test for assessing the fairness of a dismissal under section 98(4) ERA 1996 started life as a mistake and never recovered. Where the statute tells judges a dismissal is unfair if an employer acted ‘unreasonably’, the RORR tells them this refers to a special kind of ‘employer reasonableness’. In a setting where the only question is whether a dismissal is too harsh or not it is senseless to ask anyone, including a judge, to behave as if a dismissal they consider too harsh is nevertheless not too harsh. Yet this is what the RORR has always asked Employment Tribunal judges to do, with predictable results. Because they are told that they may not use their own idea of what counts as reasonable, they have no choice but to assume that ‘employer reasonableness’ tolerates more harshness than ‘reasonableness’. Lady Hale, possibly viewing the matter in the same light, appears to have invited a Supreme Court challenge to the RORR in Reilly v Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. This article argues that the Supreme Court must do away with the RORR because it artificially makes it harder to succeed in an unfair dismissal claim, it is doctrinally confused, and incremental efforts by the lower courts to resolve these problems within the RORR framework inevitably fail. The answer must involve distinguishing between a ‘standard for decision’ and a ‘standard of review’. The RORR tried to perform both functions by distorting the standard for decision to address standard of review concerns. Recent Supreme Court case law on proportionality, however, has made it clear this is the wrong approach. What the Court should install, in place of the RORR, is (a) a clear standard for decision, not subject to modification over standard of review concerns, and (b) targeted guidance about how tribunals should focus their inquiry and where to give deference to employers.

scholarly journals The Rise and Fall of Plaintiff-Friendly Causation

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaughan Black
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Do So

Starting about a generation ago, Canadian courts altered the rules governing causation to make them more plaintiff-friendly. However, these changes came to be regarded as misguided. In the 2012 decision Clements v. Clements, the Supreme Court of Canada modified the doctrine, reversing the plaintiff-friendly trend that had defined the law of causation for decades. This article will explore how Clements effectively curtailed the test of causation. It will do so in part by examining the impact it has had on the lower courts in subsequent years.

scholarly journals Unmixing the mixed questions: a framework for distinguishing between questions of fact and questions of law in contractual interpretation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniele Bertolini
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Relative Advantage ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Appellate Courts ◽  
New Approach ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

In Sattva Capital Corp v Creston Moly Corp, the Supreme Court of Canada established that contractual interpretation generally involves questions of mixed fact and law subject to a standard of palpable and overriding error, unless an extricable error of law is identified. The Court confirmed and specified this holding in a number of subsequent decisions. The new approach to appellate deference has sparked criticism from various parties in the legal community. A tension has emerged between the Supreme Court shifting away from the historical common law approach to deference and the appellate courts’ attempts to restore it. This article examines the theoretical foundations of this new case law development and proposes a methodological framework for distinguishing between questions of law and question of fact in contractual interpretation. The ultimate goal is to provide guidance on the choice of the appropriate standard of appellate review in this area. First, it is argued that the recent case law development introduced by the Supreme Court lacks rigorous analytical foundations and fails to provide adequate guidance on choosing the appropriate degree of deference on appeal. Second, it is contended that a useful methodological approach for distinguishing between questions of fact and questions of law is 1) to identify the cognitive task performed by the judge when adjudicating the contended issue, and 2) to assess the relative advantage of adjudicating actors in performing that cognitive task. Cognitive task refers to the type of judicial reasoning, or inferential activity, the judge performs when deciding an issue.

scholarly journals INDIVIDUALS ENTITLED TO NON-MATERIAL DAMAGE COMPENSATION - CONSEQUENCES OF IMPLEMENTING DIRECTIVE 2012/29/EU TO THE BULGARIAN INSURANCE BUSINESS

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya Raycheva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Liability Insurance ◽  
Material Damage ◽  
Damage Compensation ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Insurance Business ◽  
The Impact

The report analyses the obligation for fair insurance compensations under Motor Third Party Liability Insurance and the impact on the insurance business as well as the lack of legislation, which necessitated its replacement by case law. Emphasis is placed on the imperative nature of the interpretative decisions of the Supreme Court and their importance to society.

scholarly journals Functions of the Commercial Cassation Court in the Supreme Court in Ukraine

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Ponomarova
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Judicial Reform ◽  
Main Function ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
Lower Courts ◽  
Concept Of Function ◽  
The Law

During the judicial reform of 2016, the Law of Ukraine "On Judicial System and Status of Judges" was adopted from 02.06.2016 No. 1402-VIII, as well as amendments to the procedural legislation, which created the legal basis for the creation of a new Supreme Court as a whole and in its composition economic court, in particular. Established on the basis of the Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine, the Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court assumed the main functions of the court of cassation of economic jurisdiction and organizationally took the place of the structural unit of the Supreme Court, which operates within the unified system of interaction between the courts of cassation and the Supreme Court. As the cassation instance in the field of economic justice in accordance with the Law of Ukraine " On Judicial System and Status of Judges " of 02.06.2016 No. 1402-VIII has changed, in particular, it is currently acting in the form of the Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court, so the author has a need more detailed study of their functions, which is the purpose of the article. The author has made a thorough analysis of scientific approaches to understanding the essence of the concept of "function". In addition, the article deals with the classifications of the functions of the cassation instance ..., given by domestic scientists, and on their basis proposed its own classification of the functions of the Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court. In particular, the author substantiates the concept of dividing the functions of the Court of Cassation within the Supreme Court into two groups: main and derivative. The main function of the Court of Cassation in the Supreme Court, according to the author, is the function of justice, which is manifested through the functions of cassation and appeal review cases. In its turn, the author of the article refers to the following functions: 1) supervision of the activity of lower courts and control over the observance of the rules of law; 2) ensuring the unity of case law; 3) interpretation function; 4) explanatory function; 5) analysis and synthesis of case law. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of theoretical developments in national science and a practical approach to the definition of functions, the author concluded that all functions of the Court of Cassation are closely related to each other, and they are inherently complex in the administration of justice.

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