Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis study explores two conceptions of justice and their radically different implications for mandatory retirement. The author argues that the case against mandatory retirement rests on a conception of justice which ignores the fact that a society is composed of different generations. Yet the neglect of this seemingly trivial fact leads to serious problems of intergenerational justice; and the note considers both how these problems can be accommodated within a theory of liberal justice, and the implications of that theory for mandatory retirement. The note then considers which of these two conceptions of justice is embodied in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It argues that to ignore considerations of intergenerational justice in mandatory retirement cases amounts to a denial of the equal protection and the equal benefit of the law guaranteed by the Charter.

AbstractThe Supreme Court's decisions on constitutional amendment made possible and then sanctioned a political compromise which conflicts with the logic of the only provision of the BNA Act dealing with amendments to the division of powers. The implications of section 94 have been overlooked partly because judges are ill-disposed to arguments based upon the structure of the BNA Act, and partly because of Frank Scott's misleading essay on the subject. Scott's centralist interpretation of section 94 is untenable, largely because that section does not restrict provincial sovereignty or federalism but gives constitutional recognition to them. Section 94 also implies a formal amending procedure of unanimity: neither unilateral action by the federal Parliament nor substantial provincial consent has any application to the division of powers. Since the centralist interpretation of the Canadian constitution cannot be reconciled with a significant provision of the BNA Act, a conception of Canadian federalism is required which gives greater recognition to the constitutional autonomy of the provinces.

AbstractArguments for tolerance, and criticisms of it, regularly produce paradoxes and other kinds of conceptual difficulty. We seek to show that these paradoxes are unnecessary, and that they arise from misconceptions of what a theory of tolerance is required to justify. Imagined as a "virtue," tolerance is simply confused with other concepts; understood in the framework of a theory of "rights," the element of choice essential to the concept is wholly neglected; explaining the concept in terms of some theory of fallibilism leads to a confusion of pragmatic with cognitive standards. Moreover, such mistaken approaches often arise from an equation of tolerance with liberalism or pluralism: the authors maintain, however, that justifications of tolerance do not rest on a commitment to any political theory or ideology, but imply only a recognition of the political situation itself.