The Shadow of Absurdity and the Challenge of Easy Cases: New article in SCLR

the-supreme-court-law-review

You may recall from previous posts that this incident involved an unprecedented ruling, the 2014 Supreme Court Act Reference, in which the Court advised 6-1 that Justice Marc Nadon was ineligible for appointment to one of the three seats on the Court reserved to Quebec.

In the article, I discuss several ways in which the Reference was an “exceptional constitutional moment”.  I defend the majority’s reasoning from two main lines of critique, and I consider the degree to which the Reference provides insight about the expectation that a high court will provide the “right answer”.

You can access the paper by clicking here.