The Centre is excited to announce the publication of a new special issue of the Constitutional Forum! This special issue (34.1) flows from a workshop co-organized by the uOttawa Public Law Centre and the Centre for Constitutional Studies (uAlberta), held at uOttawa in March 2024. The workshop brought together a small group of constitutional experts to talk about Rosalind Dixon's landmark monograph, Responsive Judicial Review. This special issue comprises written versions of papers first presented at that workshop, along with a response to these papers from Professor Dixon. It encompasses reflections on a number of specific and currently contentious constitutional questions, including how courts should respond to the uptick in provincial recourse to the notwithstanding clause, the proper role of unwritten constitutional principles in judicial decision-making, and the limits that principles like democracy and federalism place on the practice of judicial review.

 

Special Issue 34.1: Responsive Judicial Review

 

Contents

 

Editors’ Introduction: Responsive Judicial Review
Richard Mailey, Vanessa MacDonnell

Living Dead Constitutionalism or Why Old Constitutional Worlds Are Never Lost for Good: A Comment on Rosalind Dixon’s Responsive Judicial Review
Jean-Christophe Bedard Rubin

Out of the Shadows: Responsive Judicial Review and the Resurgence of the Notwithstanding Clause
Marion Sandilands

The Regime Politics of Responsive Judicial Review
Geoffrey Sigalet

The Role of Democratic Majority Understandings of Rights in Rosalind Dixon’s Responsive Judicial Review
Vanessa MacDonnell

Deconstructing City of Toronto: Unwritten Constitutional Principles and Responsive Judicial Review
Richard Mailey

Responsive Judicial Review in Canada: Reflections on the Notwithstanding Clause and Beyond
Rosalind Dixon