Category / Law and ethics

A Toronto family’s lawsuit against The Globe and Mail and former reporter Jan Wong for invasion of privacy threatens to strengthen Canada’s privacy laws and, writes J-Source law editor Dean Jobb, create…

CommentaryBritain’s libel laws are outdated and a gift to the censorious and powerful, who use them to silence critics and, increasingly, to try to shut down websites and bloggers. The Internet and…

CommentaryWhile the Canadian Human Rights Commission has concluded that Mark Steyn’s controversial October 2006 Maclean’s piece was “calculated to excite and even offend certain readers,” the commission ruled that doesn’t make it…

CommentaryEngland has abolished the ancient common law offence of blasphemous libel, but the crime remains on the books in Canada. Until the offence fell into disuse in the 1920s, anyone who made…

News The Supreme Court of Canada has described open courts as a “core value” as central to the justice system as the presumption of innocence. Yet at the trial court level in…

CommentaryNo one disputes that open courts are a hallmark of a democratic society. But media lawyer Alan Shanoff, writing the June 14, 2008 edition of the Law Times, says it’s time to stop…

Canada’s highest court has clarified when an opinion is fair comment in a ruling that overturns a libel award against Vancouver radio talk show host Rafe Mair.

News and CommentaryYouths convicted of serious crimes like murder, manslaughter and violent sexual assaults will no longer automatically lose their anonymity. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in May that the publication…

Toronto (June 11, 2008) — An Ontario judge has released a videotape of a statement convicted murderer Paul Bernado gave to police in 2007 denying involvement in the murder of Elizabeth Bain…

NewsA group of Nova Scotia media outlets has successfully challenged a ruling that allowed a young man convicted of murdering a cab driver to have his identity shielded pending an appeal of…