Emojis and Judicial Law: A Few Challenges (2)Part 2: And That Emoji, How Do You Write It? In Part 1, one could read, “For those peppering their text messaging with them, emojis are small pictograms used as an illustration or to express an emotion.” For a computer system, however, an emoji is one of many characters.
Emojis and Judicial Law: A Few Challenges (1)Part 1: When You Write “👿🐙💮” What Do You Mean Exactly? This is how the microblog “Tweeting case law as emoji (badly)” summarizes the 1665 decision of Scot and Scot v. Fletcher. The case did deal with intellectual property rights in books, and indeed “the question was touching what was necessary to be proved in [some] summons.” It does not refer to basketball, or any sport, really.
Three Reasons Why Canadians Should Know About Deepfakes NowOn September 5, 2019, Facebook’s current Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer broke the news that the company will be participating in the launch of a challenge to detect deepfakes. What are “deepfakes”? You may have heard about them in the last two years because Nicolas Cage’s face has begun appearing in clips of movies and […]
The Jury’s Own VoiceThe jury is said to be the conscience of a community (R v Sherratt). As the representatives of the public and the arbiters of culpability, jurors democratize criminal trials. Given the importance and authority accorded to that body, any changes to the law that determines how the jury is composed demands attention. In anticipation of […]
Careful: Secularism Doesn’t Actually Protect Women’s RightsBill 21, “An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State,” claims in part to be a move to defend gender equality. The logic behind the proposed bill is that visible religious signs impede women’s full participation in public. We know this is not a new concern. Like limitations imposed on women in countries across the […]
Principled Limitations? or Just Path Dependency?The rules of evidence in applications for judicial review need to be modernized, to account both for the broader range of “decisions” and “decision-makers” that are now subject to judicial review in Canada, and most notably non-adjudicative decisions and decision-makers, and for the more expansive availability of judicial review for substantive reasonableness.
Better Representation on Criminal JuriesCanada’s jury selection process does not have a storied history. Both the federal and provincial processes have been found wanting, particularly as they concern the representation of Indigenous People and racialized minorities on juries for criminal trials. Public scrutiny has most recently turned its eyes upon peremptory challenges. Provided for in s.634 of the Criminal […]
Mediation at the Court of Québec: Lessons Learned and a View into the FutureThe panel entitled “Mediation at the Court of Québec: Lessons Learned and a View into the Future” examined the evolution of judicial mediation and the Court of Québec’s contribution to Quebec’s leadership role in the field. As affirmed by Professor Jean-François Roberge of the Université de Sherbrooke, the identity of judicial mediation is in a […]
Mediation at the Court of Appeal: Lessons Learned and a View into the FutureMediation at the Court of Appeal started in 1997, as a pilot project that was applied solely in family law proceedings. It was noted that at the time of installation of this project, many of the justices at the Court of Appeal were against it…
Judicial Mediation in Canada: An Inspiring Success StoryThe Honourable Robert A. Graesser praised Quebec for being “the fountainhead of judicial dispute resolution in Canada.” Quebec has in fact been a leader in organizing, legitimizing and practicing judicial mediation. The “Judicial Mediation in Canada” panel attests to the influence of Quebec’s model in the practice of judicial mediation in the rest of Canada.
