University of Toronto Law School Faculty Blog

Reasoning in Islamic and Jewish Legal History

My colleague Professor Robert Gibbs (philosophy; dir. Jackman Humanities Institute) and I recently were awarded a grant to begin a 3 year project exploring reasoning in Islamic and Jewish law, and the implications of our findings for a philosophy of law more generally. I'd like to share our general proposal and methodological approach, and invite comments.

Our questions revolve around the general concern of the roles of reason and authority in interpreting and determining law in religious traditions. While the question of authority and reason arises in every legal culture, we propose to focus on these two traditions because of their explicit and extensive reflection on questions of reason, and in specific we will gain a sharper and in some ways more complex purchase on the questions by considering how jurists interwove resources that were intrinsically human, and so would be qualified as rational in their time, with both political and religious authority.

Canadian Law and Economics Association Annual Meeting - Call for Papers

The next Annual Meeting of the Canadian Law and Economics Association will be held on Sept. 26-27, 2008.  As usual, the meeting will be held at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.  More details and Call for Papers here.

Earl Lipson, et al. v. Her Majesty the Queen, et al.

The Supreme Court of Canada will hear an appeal tomorrow in a case called Lipson v. Canada.  The appeal may prove to be a significant test of the efficacy of the so-called "general anti-avoidance rule" (the "GAAR") in combatting what is perceived to be abusive tax avoidance.

The Lipsons engaged in a series of transactions over two days in 1994 in which they made use of various rules, including the spousal rollover rule (section 73), the spousal attribution rule (section 74.1), and the back-to-back loans rule (subsection 20(3)), to transform what would otherwise have been non-deductible mortgage interest under paragraph 20(1)(c) into, they argue, deductible interest under paragraph 20(1)(c). 

The Lipsons have lost previously at the Tax Court of Canada and at the Federal Court of Appeal.  It is not at all obvious, however, that the Lipsons will lose at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Upcoming Conference: Developing Aboriginal Economies

On May 1, 2008, the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, in partnership with the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, will be hosting a summit entitled “Developing Aboriginal Economies.”  The summit is a one-day symposium featuring two roundtables with a diverse group of panelists.  The goal of this summit is to provide a forum for new ideas and new approaches to economic development in Aboriginal communities.

Canada’s Aboriginal communities are extremely diverse, and so too is the range of economic challenges facing these communities.  The Faculty of Law recognizes that meeting the challenge of developing Aboriginal economies will require complex and multifaceted solutions.  Thus, the intention of this summit is not simply to generate ideas, but to bring together the parties needed to forge unique and useful coalitions.  With this in mind, our panelists include not only members of the bar and the Academy but also elected officials such as Ontario's Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, business persons, and Aboriginal people in their capacities as leaders, bankers, and heads of corporations.

For more information, including the program and registration, please visit:
http://www.law.utoronto.ca/conferences/aboriginaleconomies.html

Suicide Bombings: An Act to Amend the Criminal Code

Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein (Lib.) has recently introduced into Parliament a proposed amendment to the anti-terrorism provisions of the Criminal Code, Bill S-210, which is now before the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee. The Bill is a short and straightforward one, which provides:

Section 83.01 of the Criminal Code is amended by adding the following after subsection (1.1):

(1.2) For greater certainty, a suicide bombing comes within paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition "terrorist activity" in subsection (1).

Although the point seems an obvious one, and, indeed, has been objected to by a number of MP's and senators on the grounds that it defines an act that is already covered by the Code's definition of "terrorist activity", the proposed amendment has merit. Criminal law has a public education and labelling function which will be advanced by this definitional statement. In addition, given that Canadian courts often look to international law and its institutional pronouncements on questions of interpretation, the amendment is necessary in order to avoid the interpretive pitfalls into which international human rights and United Nations bodies have fallen.

My brief to the Senate committee is attached.
Download SuicideBombingS210.pdf