News
Ruling on NS/Niqab (bonus, link to Anita Hill on CBC radio this am)
Apr 25th
For those who are interested, here are Justice Weisman’s ruling on the 2 time round for N.S. (niqab wearing complainant in sexual assault trial). He finds that she will have to remove the niqab for the preliminary inquiry. N.S. will appeal at least partly on the basis that the judge refused to hear evidence about the unreliability of demeanor evidence.  Note that in the counsel list, N.S. doesn’t have counsel – though her counsel on the appeals, David Butt, did testify in front of the preliminary inq judge earlier this month.  Thanks to JB for the file. More >
NIP on SSRN from Elaine Craig: The Case against TWU’s Law School [now updated, with letters]
Jan 19th
[Update, thank you very much to Bev Baines of Queens, who sent along the (public) letters referred to below].
Elaine Craig (Dalhousie) (learn from her here, in a mini lecture on Understanding Sexual Assault Law) has posted The Case for the Federation of Law Societies Rejecting Trinity Western University’s Proposed Law Degree Program (forthcoming CJWL) to SSRN, here:
Should Canada have a law school that discriminates against gays and lesbians? Would the governing bodies of the legal profession in Canada approve a law school that prohibited mixed race sexual intimacy? Should a self-regulating legal profession require that the policies of the institutions that produce More >
Dr. Tracey Lindberg on the Laws of the Kelly Lake Cree Nation: January 28 at Osgoode
Jan 17th
A moment when First Nations women are creating mainstream news (see our brief idle no more post here) rather than dealing with being the object of it, it is a pleasure to welcome Dr Tracey Lindberg to Osgoode.
Her faculty home page says she is “…next in a long line of argumentative Cree women.” She’s visiting Osgoode under the auspices of the Law Arts Culture Symposium (find poster here) to give a talk Monday January 28th (2pm in IKB 2003) entitled Seeing the Forest and the Trees: The Laws of the Kelly Lake Cree Nation, Canadian Legal Cognition and the Problem with More >
NS: Veiled Rejection [a very cursory roundup]
Dec 20th
NS Finally came out today, as you probably know. The Supreme Court cases considered how law should deal with the claim of a niqab (don’t know what that is? check here)Â wearing woman who was to testify as a complainant in a sexual assault trial that wearing the niqab was a religious right – when the accused claimed the wearing of the veil contravened his fair trial rights.
Here is a little roundup. First, the decision (my nutshell: N.S. Majority: Balancing. LeBel & Rothstein: Niqab is incompatible w fair trial. Abella dissents: No need to remove. )
Second, commentary. There’s not much More >
More on Trinity Western University’s proposed Law School
Jan 28th
Posted by Sonia Lawrence in Commentary
For earlier posts on TWU, click here.
Ottawa law Profs Jena McGill, Angela Cameron & others wrote for the National Post… Why Trinity Western University should not have a law school.