Volunteers are needed to serve as judges for the oral rounds at the 2022 Jessup Canadian Qualifying Tournament in Winnipeg, Manitoba from February 10-12, 2022. This is a great opportunity to interact with current law students and colleagues from across Canada. All volunteers are welcome to attend the Judges’ Reception as well as the Gala Award Dinner.
In many jurisdictions, serving as a moot court judge counts towards Continuing Legal Education / Continued Professional Development credit.
Pre-Competition Judges will receive background materials including:
The legal problem;
A comprehensive Bench Memo that details the problem and provides a general overview of the public international law principles teams are expected to address;
Copies of the teams’ written arguments are also available for judges to review prior to adjudication of the round.
Competition Oral round judges will sit in panels of three and score the performance of competing schools.
Judges have the opportunity and are encouraged to provide feedback to students following the round.
Organizers attempt to balance the panel based on the judges’ practice area and experience in international law; familiarity in public international law is an asset but not a requirement to judge.
Rounds typically last 2.5 hours, and depending on one’s familiarity with the legal issues, can require the same amount of time for preparation.
Vlex has updated its search capabilities with the latest update to Vincent, its A.I. research assistant, with cross-jurisdictional recommendations.
“As of November 2021, vLex users can discover recommendations from multiple jurisdictions that differ from that of the document they are looking at. For example, a lawyer using Vincent to analyse a document from the Caribbean or Canada will now see recommendations of textually similar and relevant authorities from the UK, and many other jurisdictions. Importantly, this will enable lawyers to build better arguments using on-point cases and persuasive authorities from jurisdictions that are most relevant to them.”
For more details, this post from Mishcon de Reya lays out the recent trends and advantages of searching other jurisdictions, and also explains why there is still some hesitancy and why judges typically prefer to cite jurisdictions that are geographically nearby.
Province Proclaims New Legislation to Repeal and Replace the Limitations ActNovember 2, 2021 – “Statutory limitations ensure that a person can no longer seek the assistance of the court to enforce a legal right after a certain period. This legislation will clarify statutory limitations for the various causes of action in Manitoba.”
How Can You Contest A Blood Alcohol Test? October 14, 2021 “For years, police had to have a reasonable suspicion that a driver was under the influence before they could mandate them to take a breathalyzer test. What amounted to reasonable suspicion was variable. An officer might pull someone over if they saw them leave a bar and start driving, if their driving was erratic, or for any other number of reasons. In Manitoba, this is no longer the case: officers can administer mandatory breathalyzer tests without reasonable suspicion. That complicates one of the more common defences against DUIs.”
How Does Sandbagging Work in M&A Deals? October 7, 2021 “While both the federal and provincial governments have encouraged private sector employers to impose vaccination policies, it is not mandatory at this time. Employers are responsible for determining the appropriate balance in their workplace between health and safety considerations and the human rights and privacy interests of their employees.”
Critiquing Predictive Policing – Mikal Sokolowski “…predictive policing is considered a divisive controversial policing method, even considering the purported benefits that it offers. Although predictive policing has not been fully adopted in Canada, it has seen rapid adoption in the United States over the last ten years, which is understandable considering the benefits that predictive policing potentially offers. These benefits include predicting when, where, and who will be involved in crimes based on empirical data. Moreover, the reduction in crime rates once predictive policing has been implemented are staggering. However, there are several concerns with the adoption of predictive policing, including that it is generally operated by third parties. This reality means the police may not understand how to properly interpret the data and the data may not be subject to public scrutiny.”
New articles from the Canadian Journal of Law and Society and Criminal Law Quarterly are now available for Law Society members upon request. For a pdf copy of these, or other legal journal articles email us at library@lawsociety.mb.ca.
Canadian Journal of Law and Society
Introduction 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 189 Dia Dabby, David Koussens
“This article reflects on the question of how culture and religion enter legal cases and public debates about the place of majoritarian religious symbols in diverse societies that have some democratic will to inclusion. In the context of the new diversity, the article considers how the articulation of “our culture and heritage” as a strategy for preserving “formerly” religious symbols and practices in public spaces excludes particular groups from the narrative of who “we” are as a nation. The reader is invited to consider how challenges to such symbols and practices might be articulated as a challenge to privilege and power and that a refusal to acknowledge those power relations puts the reputation of democracy and human rights at risk.”
Formalizing Secularism as a Regime of Restrictions and Protections: The Case of Quebec (Canada) and Geneva (Switzerland) 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 283 Amélie Barras
Voting on Belonging 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 263 Dia Dabby , Assistant Professor, Département des sciences juridiques, UQAM, Dabby.dia@uqam.ca
Introduction 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 195 Dia Dabby, David Koussens
L’État Canadien et la Reconnaissance des Droits Religieux Autochtones 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 245 Claude Gélinas
La Loi sur la Laïcité de L’État et les Conditions de la Fondation Juridique D’Un Modèle Interculturel au Québec 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 323 Louis-Philippe Lampron
L’Effacement de la Laïcité Libérale en France. De la Séparation du Politique et du Religieux vers la Promotion du ⪡ Vivre-Ensemble ⪢ 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 303
Convergence Culturelle et Légistique: Pour un Modèle Québécois D’Intégration Distinct Consacré par une Loi-Cadre 36 No. 2 Can. J.L. & Soc’y 339 Guillaume Rousseau
Criminal Law Quarterly
No More Extensions of Criminal Law Through Injunctions? Policing Blockades 69 C.L.Q. 402 Kent W. Roach
The Objectivity of Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt 69 C.L.Q. 513 Gerald T.G. Seniuk
“The thesis postulated here explains how the vague standard of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” can be understood as an objective standard of proof even though the decision isbased on a subjective feeling of certitude. In the main, the objective nature of the reasonable doubt standard of proof can only be discerned as patterns emerge over time through the decisions made by individual judges in different cases. Most guilty verdicts depend on the trier’s strong subjective feeling of certitude about the guilt of the accused, a subjective certitude that is much closer to absolute certainty than it is to a probability, but still short of absolute certainty. This subjective feeling of certitude is constrained from slipping into arbitrariness or whimsy by the legal requirements that the verdict is correct in law, is reasonable, and is supported by the evidence. However, even with those constraints, there is room for uncertainty and disagreement. What elevates the subjective feeling of certitude to the level of objective proof is the agreement of a defined group of reasonable, informed people. In other words, the objectivity of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a socially constructed objectivity that is defined by a methodology of agreement. This methodology of agreement is similar to what sociologists refer to as an objectivation and epistemologists as objectification.”
Requiem for a Representative Jury? So Long Peremptory Challenge and Hello Expanded Judicial Stand By 69 C.L.Q. 436 Brian Manarin
Notes and Comments R. v. Griffith and R. v. Leonard : A Dangerous Assumption in Recent Right to Counsel Cases Criminal Law Quarterly 2021 69 C.L.Q. 404 Kent W. Roach
Notes and Comments Revisiting the Air of Reality Test Within the Context of the Defence of Provocation: A Case Comment on the Court of Appeal for Ontario’s Decision in R. v. Alas Criminal Law Quarterly 2021 69 C.L.Q. 411 Kent W. Roach
Jury Selection Is Not Random Selection: A Methodological Critique of R. v. Kokopenace and a Recommended Solution 69 C.L.Q. 464 Michelle I. Bertrand, David Ireland and Richard Jochelson
The Manitoba Law Library would like to acknowledge with gratitude that we are situated on Treaty One Territory, the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree and Dakota peoples, and the homeland of the Métis Nation.
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