Antonin Scalia’s death highlights the enormous political divide in the US United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia passed away suddenly in a hunting ranch in Texas on 13 February. Justice Scalia was a brilliant scholar and the leading originalist jurist in the United States, and by all accounts, a very personable guy. I didn’t know him though, and I was never a fan of Justice Scalia’s...
Presidential Elections in Uganda Marred by Procedural Irregularities and Opposition Suppression Authors: Justin Toh, with edits and title by Sophie Chiasson The 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections in Uganda have been criticized for failing to uphold democratic standards set out in domestic and international law. According to Uganda’s Electoral Commission, incumbent candidate...
The Safety of Hospitals and Civilian Targets On 28 February, an accord lead by the United States and Russia started the first day of a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria. The accord was accepted by President Bashar al-Assad’s government and many of his opponents, giving some analysts in the United Nations hope that the accord can pave meaningful diplomatic ground between the parties. The...
A Cold Night Filled with Warm Company and Conversation On Thursday, February 25th, I had the pleasure of attending the fourth annual OWN Your Career event, the Osgoode Women’s Network’s culminating event of the school year, held at Toronto’s Rosehill Venue, a warm, comfortable space a few minutes walk from St. Clair subway station. The evening is designed for two main purposes: to provide a...
The Case for Piercing TCHC’s Corporate Veil On 5 February 2016, a fire in a Scarborough residence run by Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) claimed the lives of three seniors and injured several others, including twelve people who had to be hospitalized. The Toronto Fire Marshal announced that it would be filing non-criminal charges under section 2.4(2) of the Ontario Fire Code against...
Mentally Ill in Law School The Obiter Dicta generally does not publish anonymous articles. A strict, limited exception allows students to publish anonymously exclusively for articles about their mental health experience in law school. This exception exists only for cases where there are concerns directly regarding the risk of exposure or stigma. The Obiter Dicta Executive Board has full and final...
“The traditional professions will be dismantled, leaving most (but not all) professionals to be replaced by less expert people and high-performing systems.” This is the central message of The Future of Professions, a new book from Richard and Daniel Susskind. Machines, they argue, will take over much professional work. Even when the machines cannot do so alone, the Susskinds expect that they will...
Examining Alcohol and Zika Virus Policies The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) created a small controversy on 2 February after it released a report that recommended sexually active women should abstain from drinking alcohol. The CDC’s report intends to reduce the risk of accidental but harmful complications to pregnancies. However, some organizations have criticized the CDC’s recommendations. For...
This past week, I had the fortunate opportunity to interview a Toronto-based legal innovator. Amer Mushtaq, a lawyer at Formative LLP and an Osgoode alum, recently launched www.YouCounsel.ca, an online course to help self-represented litigants make their way through the small claims court system. I had the chance to speak with Amer about his background, the inspiration for You Counsel, and what...
Unfortunately Not an Archaic Procedure of the Past We as Canadians have a dark history of oppression and violence enacted upon marginalized populations. Unfortunately, some of this oppression and violence lives on, often occurring under the radar of many Canadians’ knowledge. The sterilization of vulnerable and marginalized groups was used as a process of eugenics in a much more direct and...
Your Life Can and May be Used Against You Just in time for the first week of our Ethical Lawyering classes, Lori Douglas recently spoke out about the humiliating experiences that led to her premature retirement. For those of you who don’t recall, Lori Douglas is the Manitoba judge whose career was ruined after nude photographs of her became public knowledge. The photos were posted online without...
Gender still influential in perceptions of “fair process” On 7 January, it was announced that Alberta Attorney General Kathleen Ganley has moved for the Canadian Judicial Council to skip the review panel phase of its investigation into the conduct of Federal Court Judge Robin Camp and move directly into the formal inquiry phase. Camp made headlines last autumn when criticism began to mount over...
“Monkey see, monkey sue is not good law—at least not in the Ninth Circuit” I consider myself incredibly fortunate to be taking copyright this semester; it seems like 2016 is quickly shaping up to be a tumultuous year for this area of law. The year started off with controversy after the copyright to Hitler’s manifesto Mein Kampf expired on 31 December 2015. The copyright had been held since his...
In 2015, the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) at Osgoode Hall Law School published Civil Non-Family Cases Filed in the Supreme Court of BC – Research Results and Lessons Learned. This study is one piece of a larger, five year, “Cost of Justice” research initiative being undertaken by the CFCJ with the goal of defining the economic and social costs of justice on two fronts: the cost of...
Getting to know a low-commitment way to participate in Ontario’s environmental decisions As someone who is fairly set on a career in environmental law, I was surprised when the Environmental Law course didn’t immediately grab my attention. Not that the course isn’t a good one, it is. It just didn’t click with me until over a month in, when I saw the course in a different way. Rather than...
Nineteenth Annual JD/MBA Students’ Association Conference Anti-Terrorism legislation. Spyware. Big Data. Never in history have Western civilians been as aware of the eyes on them, and in their personal information. With the advent of organizations such as Facebook and Google, information about people is becoming a commodity in ways it could never have been imagined in the past. Understanding how...
The Osgoode Feminist Collective (OFC) Traces the Legacy of Misogyny in Canadian Courts The OFC has been spending time in the abandoned corridors of pre-renovation Osgoode uncovering a litany of archival resources from our feminist past as Osgoode’s Women’s Caucus. In our first edition of this monthly series, we have chosen to highlight the pervasive sexist attitudes that continue to plague the...
Netflix’s Making a Murderer Brings Justice Issues to the Spotlight My fellow peers were right in recommending Making a Murderer as an engaging and compelling docu-drama narrowing in on our perceptions of administration of justice. Netflix introduced the documentary in late 2015, just in time for law students to binge on the entire collection, post exam-stress and right before the new term. It...
The Role of Public Health in President Obama’s Executive Orders On 4 January 2016, President Obama announced a series of executive orders that are meant to address what he calls an “epidemic of gun violence” in the United States. He justified these orders by referring to the blocking of gun reforms in the United States congress despite the increasing number of violent public shootings and deaths...
A SYMBOL COMMANDING CHANGE IN CANADA
The image of Alan Kurdi’s tiny, lifeless body on the shores of Bodrum, Turkey commanded the world’s attention. The three-year-old immediately became the symbol of the dire situation facing Syrian refugees, displaced from their homes by civil war. His tragic story bore significant weight in the transformation of the world’s reception of Syrian refugees.
Some Areas of Concern Jim Balsillie, former CEO of Research in Motion, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “the worst public policy decision in the country’s history.”[1] The TPP is a trade agreement between Pacific nations to achieve regional trade integration. Canada officially joined negotiations in 2012. The TPP has been subject to much controversy due to its expansive scope and lack...
Connecting Climate Change and Health in the Paris Agreement Between 30 November to 11 December 2015, 195 countries as well as thousands of international organizations, activist groups, and spectators gathered in Paris in order to discuss how the international community will address climate change. The UN conference culminated in the adoption of the Paris Agreement on 12 December 2015. This...
Are companies required to bridge the gap between morality and legality? Convicted murderer Paul Bernardo made headlines this month when it became known that he had self-published a fictional e-book. The novel, titled A MAD World Order, is an allegedly violent thriller involving Mexican drug cartels and Russian agents, and became available for purchase on Amazon.com. It was a story that called...
The Paris Attacks and the Western Media’s Response When tragedies, like the recent terrorist shooting in Paris, France occur the world seems to pause in shock. Articles from online news sources, as well as national tabloids and television programs begin broadcasting ‘breaking live news’ coverage of the scene that continues for hours after the event has ceased. Social media networks are...
My Thoughts From the Innovation and Access to Justice Conference I did it! I finally made it to my first university-related conference that was held somewhere other than my own school! This past summer, while working as a research assistant with the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) at Osgoode, I heard about the inaugural Innovation and Access to Justice Conference planned for October 2015...