Dr Richard Mailey is the Director of the Centre for Constitutional Studies (CCS) at the University of Alberta. In his capacity as Director, Richard manages the Centre’s research and public education mandates. This includes serving as Managing Editor of the Centre’s two journals — the Review of Constitutional Studies and the Constitutional Forum — and coordinating research projects, public events, and academic conferences, among other things.
Richard received his LLB and LLM degrees from the University of Glasgow and completed his PhD at the University of Luxembourg in 2017. He joined the University of Alberta as a postdoc in 2018 before commencing work with the CCS as a Research Associate in 2020. During his time as a Research Associate, Richard produced a documentary podcast series, supervised the Centre’s summer student program, worked as an editor for the Centre’s two journals, and drafted a research report.
Richard has also taught a range of courses at the Universities of Glasgow, Luxembourg, Trier (Germany), and Alberta, including courses in Canadian constitutional law and legal philosophy. More recently, he has been teaching 1L constitutional law at the uAlberta Law Faculty.
Selected Publications:
“The Notwithstanding Clause and the People” (Forthcoming, National Journal of Constitutional Law).
“Deconstructing City of Toronto: Unwritten Constitutional Principles and Responsive Judicial Review” (2025) 34:1 Const Forum Const 55.
“‘We do not really know why this approach was taken’”: Explaining and Modifying the Supreme Court's Approach to the Indirect Horizontal Effect of Charter Rights” (2025) 33:4 Const Forum Const 67.
“Weaving Section 33 into the Charter Project: Citizen-Led Oversight as a Potential Way Out of the Legitimacy Conundrum” (2023) 33:3 Const Forum Const 53 (w/ Ian Peach).
“Softening Blunt Instruments: Michelman's Constitutional Essentials on the Horizontal Effect of Constitutional Rights” (15 October 2023) Balkinization (Blog).
“The Role of the Person in Modern Constitutional Law: How State-Inflicted Harms Become Personal” (2022) 87 Studies in Law, Politics and Society 73.
“Court-Packing in 2021: Pathways to Democratic Legitimacy” (2020) 44 Seattle University Law Review 35.
“An American Jurist in London: Bruce Ackerman’s Proposals for Constitutional Reform in the UK vs. Bruce Ackerman’s Constitutional Theory” (2020) 41 Liverpool Law Review 227.
“The Notwithstanding Clause and the New Populism” (2019) 28:4 Const Forum Const 9.
“Review: Andrew Arato, Post Sovereign Constitution Making: Learning and Legitimacy” (2017) 15:4 International Journal of Constitutional Law 1226.
