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Civil procedure should be "just, speedy, and inexpensive," according to the purposive rules found at the outset of many procedural codes. However, this formula creates as many questions as it answers. What does it mean for procedure to be "just?" What sorts of costs are relevant when considering how "inexpensive" procedure is? How should rule-makers and adjudicators compromise between justice, speediness, and inexpensiveness when these goals are in tension and resources are scarce? This article offers a normative account of civil procedure's purpose. The goal is to identify the warrant for"just, speedy, and inexpensive," and then to explain and refine it. I argue that welfarism, a general normative theory of public policy, is implicit in modern civil procedure. Welfarism is the idea that public policy decisions should always seek to optimize welfare for all affected individuals. I defend welfarism as a theoretical basis for reforming civil procedure and resolving its hard cases, and propose three refinements to civil procedure's purposive rules to give better effect to it.
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Following in the wake of the "Hockey Canada trial" in 2025, this article begins from the recognition that sexual harm is a complex social problem of gender inequality in Canada that requires a transformative approach to remediate effectively. Restorative justice is one such transformative approach. In Ontario, however, where the Hockey Canada trial took place, Crown prosecution policy states that individuals charged with sexual offences are categorically ineligible to be diverted to restorative programs at pre-trial stage. In other provinces, there are similar policies and other moratoriums in place that limit the use of restorative justice to varying degrees. Building on insights from the criminal law, feminist legal theory, and penal abolition fields, this article argues that these policies should be revised and moratoriums should be lifted to enable restorative justice to be more widely available in sexual harm cases.
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The Online Harms Bill (Bill C-63) imposed on larger social media platforms a “duty to act responsibly,” which rested on a recognition that traditional legal responses were no longer effective in addressing hate speech and other forms of unlawful expression when they occur online. This recognition, however, made it all the more surprising that the Bill also included an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), adding a prohibition on online hate speech. This ban was a slightly revised version of a provision — section 13 of the CHRA — that had been repealed by the federal government in 2014. The proposed revisions to the earlier CHRA ban on hate speech addressed some of the concerns raised about the earlier version of the section and that led to its repeal, but fail to account for the fact that the communication landscape has changed dramatically since 2014. In this new landscape, traditional legal responses, including human rights code restrictions, are simply too slow and cumbersome to respond effectively to the problem of online hate speech.
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Podcast Episode · Queen's Faculty of Law: QLaw Pod · March 25 · 51m
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This article explores the relationship between legal ethics and restorative justice. It argues that the legal profession should be reoriented around restorative justice as the moral foundation of a more progressive approach to legal ethics and professional responsibility. It translates concepts from restorative justice into ethical terms, grounding ideas about interdependence, community involvement, and public accountability into a list of restorative principles that can be readily applied in the practice of law, and recommending a series of practices and regulatory measures that are consistent with a restorative principles-based approach. Ultimately, the article shows that such an approach has the potential to raise the moral consciousness of lawyers, facilitate collaboration within communities and across systems, and redefine the role of lawyers in the administration of justice, transforming conditions of law and society in a more equitable direction.
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Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
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Police are reanimating years-old injunctions to threaten activists, casting a chill over protests and free speech
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"Blockchain Technology and the Law: Opportunities and Risks was one of the first texts to offer a critical analysis of Blockchain and the legal and economic challenges faced by this new technology. It offered those who are unfamiliar with Blockchain an introduction as to how the technology works and demonstrates how a legal framework that governs it can be used to ensure that it can be successfully deployed. This second edition features a discussion of issues that did not exist at the time the first edition was published, presenting new topics will help to reinforce the central premise of the book that the acceptability of Blockchain-based applications will depend on whether they can enhance efficiency and lower transactions costs. Significant new content added to this edition includes an examination of the proliferation of new applications of distributed ledger technology, such as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and, in the payments realm, Stablecoins and proposals that relate to Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). High-profile incidents in the payments realm (for instance, the DAO case and a new case currently working its way through the Canadian and American Courts, the Cicada case, as well as Celsius and FTX) and also in the securities realm have forced regulators around the globe to take a hard look at enforcing existing regulations more vigorously, and promulgating new ones where existing regulations may be found lacking. There have also been new changes on the privacy law side (with respect to open banking proposals) and in the emergence of what is referred to as "big data" generally. These and other developments have led to a consideration of new legal issues that had not been considered at the time of the original book; as a result the second edition is greatly expanded throughout and features two new chapters. The book is written for practicing lawyers, jurists and academics. It should be found on the shelves of libraries of law firms and law faculties, business schools and universities in general"-- Provided by publisher
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Shelley Kierstead, Noel Semple, 2026 CanLIIDocs 946
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