They say academic publishing comes in ‘waves’, meaning that while publishing peer-reviewed scholarship is an extremely slow process, it sometimes seems like everything comes out at once. Well, in the past week suddenly I had a couple of journal articles and a book chapter all finally published. Since they’re all on topics relevant to this little Substack on constitutional law and politics, I thought I’d share:
“Provincial Constitutions, the Amending Formula, and Unilateral Amendments to the Constitution of Canada: An Analysis of Quebec’s Bill 96” - Osgoode Hall Law Journal.
In this paper I explain why recent attempts by Quebec and Saskatchewan to unilaterally amending the Constitution of Canada are unconstitutional and illegitimate. I undertake an in depth examination of the complex relationship relationship between “provincial constitutions” and the Constitutional of Canada as it relates to the amending formula. This is perhaps the most complicated paper I’ve ever written, into the weeds of constitutional history, jurisprudence, and the historical and contemporary practice of amendment. You can download it here.
“Constitutional Retconning: History in Judicial Reasoning and Changes in Constitutional Meaning” - Alberta Law Review
This is a ‘fun’ paper but one that I think makes a serious contribution to our understanding of both constitutional change and constitutional interpretation. Drawing on the concept of ‘retroactive continuity’ or ‘retconning’ for short - well, you can read the abstract in the above screenshot! The paper provides new insights into cases involving the federal amending power, the constitutional status of the Supreme Court, and the place of the Canadian Crown in Canadian law. More importantly, I think it develops a novel concept - constitutional retconning - that I hope others will pick up and apply in other contexts. You can download the paper here.
“Studying judicial decision-making” in Paul Daly and Joe Tomlinson, eds. Researching Public Law in Common Law Systems (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023).
My chapter in this edited book looks at competing/complementary approaches to the study of judicial decision-making. It was fun to revisit research I first conducted for my doctoral work over a decade ago. It was also great workshop the chapter with some great people whose work I’ve longed admired, and to see my name in print along theirs. You can find this book here.
You are amazing!!!