Professional LLM in Constitutional Law

Credits: 3.0

This course examines the remedies that are available for breaches of the Charter and Aboriginal rights and related procedural issues. The related procedural issues may include standing, mootness and jurisdiction to award Charter remedies and apply the Charter. The discussion may include remedies in criminal cases, exclusion of evidence, damages, costs, declarations, injunctions (final and interlocutory), equitable and other remedies for violations of Aboriginal rights and the range of remedies available for unconstitutional legislation including reading down and reading in; severance, extension or invalidation of underinclusive laws; constitutional exemptions; delayed declarations of invalidity and prospective rulings.

Credits: 3.0

This course examines the role and legitimacy of judicial review in a liberal democracy; formalism and realism; critical legal studies; the ideological structure and sources of law; and law and politics.

Credits: 3.0

This course examines the process of constitutional litigation; the dynamics of judicial review; jurisdiction and choice of forum; standing; proper defendants; class actions; intervention; ripeness, mootness and justiciability; burdens of proof; evidence issues and the challenge of proving legislative and constitutional facts; strategy in public interest litigation; and effective written and oral advocacy.

Credits: 6.0

This course provides an overview of equality rights under s.15 of the Charter. Topics to be examined include the origins of the language in the text of s.15; theories of equality; definitions of intentional and adverse effects discrimination; the interpretation of the listed grounds of discrimination; the recognition and the relationship between the guarantee of equality in s.15(l) and the protection of ameliorative programmes in s.15(2); the relationship between s.15 and s.1; remedies available for the violation of equality rights; the extent to which particular listed or analogous grounds of discrimination have generated a body of case law; and an evaluation of the utility of litigation and rights discourse to further progressive goals.

Credits: 6.0

This course examines the fundamental freedoms contained in s.2 of the Charter, through theory and jurisprudence related to religion, expression, assembly and association, comparing Canada with other jurisdictions. In addition to reviewing current case law in detail, it explores fundamental questions such as: why do we protect religious freedom? Could religion be better analyzed as an associative freedom? How do religious freedom and expressive freedom conflicts get resolved? What are the boundaries of expressive freedom? How are freedom of association
and assembly analyzed? Is there an overarching unifying theory for fundamental freedoms?

Credits: 6.0

This course examines the bases for Indigenous rights in Canadian law, with particular emphasis on the source and content of Indigenous title to land. The nature of treaties and land claims agreements, their impact on Indigenous rights, and the constitutional protection of Indigenous and treaty rights are considered. The course also examines division of powers and constitutional status of Indians, Inuit and Metis.

Credits: 6.0

This course looks at the application of international human rights law in Canada, both at the federal level and in Ontario as an example of provincial jurisdiction. The course will consider socio-economic rights (for example, housing and education); civil and political rights (for example, administrative segregation in Ontario prisons); immigration and refugee law including extradition issues; international criminal law (a unique human rights regime); and other current or topical issues.

Credits: 6.0

Democracy comprises a combination of a particular form of state structure, public powers and a methodology of governance. The governing institutions and the accompanying mechanisms of governance necessitate the legitimacy of the state, the consent of the people, the application of the rule of law, respect for human rights and protection of the rights of minorities. This is the type of government prevailing in Canada and in all of its component parts. Based on these ideas, the objective of a course on “Law and Democracy” is to define the very notion of Democracy, both as a type of political system and as a legal infrastructure necessary to enable this type of political system to prevail.

Credits: 3.0

Negotiating Federalism will explore some of the dynamics, challenges and possibilities posed by intergovernmental negotiations in a federal country like Canada. An organizing idea behind this course is the notion of “negotiating in the shadow of the law”. What are the mechanics and challenges of negotiating inter-governmental cooperation within the Canadian constitutional structure? The course will focus on key concepts, traditional negotiations under the division of powers and negotiations involving Indigenous reconciliation between federal, provincial, territorial, and Indigenous governments. It was also consider negotiations connected to climate change. Some of the key concepts that will be considered are inter-governmental relations theory, doctrine related to delegation, deference and the spending power, the legal status of intergovernmental agreements and the descriptive and normative utility of the concept of cooperative federalism. While several aspects of traditional negotiations under the division of powers will be addressed, a primary focus will be dynamics of negotiations involving regulation of natural resources and the environment. Students will be asked to consider the impact of the arguments presented to the Alberta Court of Appeal in the provincial reference of constitutional questions concerning the 2019 federal Impact Assessment Act. The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada concerning federal carbon pricing law will also be considered, as well as the critical literature that has commented on this decision. The more recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada declaring the bulk of the federal Impact Assessment Act invalid will also be closely considered. The final section of the course will be directed to the special challenges that accompany negotiations dealing with Indigenous reconciliation. It will be seen that federal-provincial negotiations and Crown-Indigenous negotiations are closely connected at many levels. It is notable that such negotiations frequently involve considerations of environmental protection and climate change. The focus of the course is less on the jurisprudential framework and more about how negotiations in a wide variety of contexts are shaped by the constitutional framework. It will provide an opportunity to reflect on some of the dynamics that make our country work and some of the special challenges that accompany a federal structure.

Credits: 6.0

Political law is the interdisciplinary study of the role of law in statecraft. As an instrument of democratic governance, law functions in conjunction with public policy and administration, and with politics. This course aims to provide an interdisciplinary dimension to our understanding of law in its real-life context; giving students specific areas of knowledge and enabling them to use specific analytical tools in assessing law.