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The Courts and the Colonies offers a detailed account of a protracted dispute arising within a Hutterite colony in Manitoba, when the Schmiedeleut leaders attempted to force the departure of a group that had been excommunicated but would not leave. This resulted in about a dozen lawsuits in both Canada and the United States between various Hutterite factions and colonies, and placed the issues of shunning, excommunication, legitimacy of leadership, and communal property rights before the secular courts. What is the story behind this extraordinary development in Hutterite history? How did the courts respond, and how did that outside (state) law relate to the traditional inside law of the Hutt...
The world's longest-lasting and most successful communal society, the Hutterites have a model of governance that has served them well for almost five hundred years. In the past the colony was an "ark," isolated from both the secular world and the host society. But today colonies face new challenges because of globalization and digital technologies and are losing much of their ability to exclude these influences from their lives. Based on extensive fieldwork with the Schmiedeleut branch of the Hutterites, the book includes the Conference Letters and Regulations, published for the first time in English translation, that provide invaluable insights into strategies for managing change.
The meaning of criminal responsibility emerged in early- to mid-twentieth-century Canadian capital murder cases through a complex synthesis of socio-cultural, medical, and legal processes. Kimberley White places the negotiable concept of responsibility at the centre of her interdisciplinary inquiry, rather than the more fixed legal concepts of insanity or guilt. In doing so she brings subtlety to more general arguments about the historical relationship between law and psychiatry, the insanity defence, and the role of psychiatric expertise in criminal law cases. Through capital murder case files, White examines how the idea of criminal responsibility was produced, organized, and legitimized i...
Unjust by Design describes a system in need of major restructuring. Written by a respected critic, it presents a modern theory of administrative justice fit for that purpose. It also provides detailed blueprints for the changes the author believes would be necessary if justice were to in fact assume its proper role in Canada’s administrative justice system.
Aboriginal Justice and the Charter examines and seeks to resolve the tension between Aboriginal approaches to justice and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Until now, scholars have explored idealized notions of what Aboriginal justice might look like. David Milward strikes out into new territory by asking why Aboriginal communities seek reform and by identifying some of the constitutional barriers in their path. He identifies specific areas of the criminal justice process in which Aboriginal communities may wish to adopt different approaches, tests these approaches against constitutional imperatives, and offers practical proposals for reconciling the various matters at stake. This bold exploration of Aboriginal justice grapples with the difficult question of how Aboriginal justice systems can be fair to their constituents but still comply with the protections guaranteed to all Canadians by the Charter.
In the landmark Lavallee decision of 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that evidence of "battered woman syndrome" was admissible in establishing self-defence for women accused of killing their abusive partners. This book looks at the trials of eleven battered women, ten of whom killed their partners, in the fifteen years since Lavallee. Drawing extensively on trial transcripts and a rich expanse of interdisciplinary sources, the author looks at the evidence produced at trial and at how self-defence was argued. By illuminating these cases, this book uncovers the practical and legal dilemmas faced by battered women on trial for murder.
When legal scholars or judges approach the subject of sexuality, they are often constrained by existing theoretical frameworks. For instance, queer theorists typically focus on sexual liberty but tend not to consider issues such as sexual violence. Feminist theories focus on violence but often don’t give recognition to the joy of sexuality. To assess the possibility of devising a legal theory of sexuality that can ensure equality without assimilation, diversity without exclusion, and liberty without suffering, Elaine Craig examines the Supreme Court of Canada’s approach to sexuality in cases that range from sexual violence to discrimination based on orientation. Although the Court continues to hold an essentialist understanding of sexuality that renders certain harms invisible, its feminist-inspired approach to sexual violence recognizes the socially constructed nature of sexuality and produces legal reasoning that promotes sexual integrity as a common interest. Blending feminist theory with the inclusiveness of queer theory, Craig advances an iconoclastic approach to law and sexuality that has the power to transform both theory and practice.
Drawing on theories of governmentality, Lippert traces the emergence of sanctuary practice to a shift in responsibility for refugees and immigrants from the state to churches and communities. Here sanctuary practices and spaces are shaped by a form of pastoral power that targets needs and operates through sacrifice, and by a sovereign power that is exceptional, territorial, and spectacular. Correspondingly, law plays a complex role in sanctuary, appearing variously as a form of oppression, a game, and a source of majestic authority that overshadows the state. A thorough and original account of contemporary sanctuary practice, this book tackles theoretical and methodological questions in governmentality and socio-legal studies.
Interwar Halifax was a city in flux, a place where citizens debated adopting new ideas and technologies but agreed on one thing -- modernity was corrupting public morality and unleashing untold social problems on their fair city. To create a bulwark against further social dislocation, citizens, policy makers, and officials modernized the city’s machinery of order -- courts, prisons, and the police force -- and placed greater emphasis on crime control. These tough-on-crime measures, Boudreau argues, did not resolve problems but rather singled out ethnic minorities, working-class men, and female and juvenile offenders as problem figures in the eternal quest for order.
Canada has abundant natural wealth -- beautiful landscapes, vast forests, and thousands of rivers and lakes. The land defines Canadians as a people, yet the country has one of the worst environmental records in the industrialized world. Building on his previous book, The Environmental Rights Revolution (2012), David R. Boyd, one of Canada’s leading environmental lawyers, describes how recognizing the constitutional right to a healthy environment could have a transformative impact by empowering citizens, holding governments and industry accountable, and improving Canada’s green record. The overwhelming majority of the world’s nations now recognize environmental rights through laws, constitutions, treaties, or court decisions. Boyd explores Canada’s history of failed efforts to do the same within this international context and offers three pathways to constitutional recognition of the right to a healthy environment. This important and provocative book provides a blueprint for renewed leadership in protecting human health, the well-being of the planet, and the interests of future generations.