2019

The Ontario Divisional Court in Trost v Conservative Party of Canada, 2018 ONSC 2733, provided another welcome clarification on what can be subject to judicial review when it held that a political party is not subject to judicial review as it is not a state actor, and in so doing refused to follow an earlier decision of the court which had judicially reviewed a decision of the New Democratic Party.

In Girouard v Canada (Attorney General), 2018 FC 865, Justice Noël of the Federal Court determined that a recommendation by the Canadian Judicial Council for the removal of a judge is subject to judicial review.

Edward Béchard-Torres, in his recent article Repudiating the Supreme Court on the Standard of Review, summarizes how a decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal has questioned the Supreme Court of Canada’s jurisprudence concerning the standard of review which must be applied to a given administrative decision, highlighting how the standard of review for administrative matters continues to be a moving target and the subject of much debate.

In Best v Canada (Attorney General), 2017 FC 1145, the Federal Court held that an administrative body, the Canadian Judicial Council, was entitled to sub-delegate to its executive director the authority to summarily dismiss complaints through an early screening process, and that its decision to summarily dismiss a complaint was reasonable.

The Ontario Court of Appeal, in its recent decision in E.T. v Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, 2017 ONCA 893

When can a hearing which has commenced be reassigned to a new decision-maker or a decision-maker substituted to render a final decision? Several recent decisions have attempted to wrestle with these thorny issues.

Each year one wonders whether the CBA Admin Law, Labour & Employment Law Conference will meet expectations created by the great conference the previous year. Without a doubt the 2017 Conference, held in Ottawa in November, met – even exceeded – them.

Much ink has been spilled over the significance of the principle of cooperative federalism, starting with whether it is even a recognized doctrine that can be relied upon to adjudicate disputes over the division of legislative powers established by the Constitution Act, 1867.

The Supreme Court of Canada in India v Badesha, has confirmed that the standard of review of reasonableness will apply to a review of a Minister's extradition decision. With that decision, an extradition order against two Canadian citizens accused of arranging an honour killing in India was reinstated.

In its latest volume, the University of New Brunswick Law Journal has focused on scholarship confronting issues in administrative and constitutional law.