Category: law

  • Bradley Miller, Judged

    Professor Bradley Miller has been appointed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, effective January 16th, 2015. His bio there states that “his main areas of practice were commercial litigation, class actions, administrative law, constitutional law and human rights law”. And yet it would seem that his understanding of human rights is less than complete. In an article…

  • Overtime, Wages and Theft

    I know a number of people here in Vancouver working in restaurants and bars, and the prevalence of unlawful behaviour is just astounding. Of course, I don’t mean the staff stealing from employers, but employers just stealing wholesale from the staff. While BC has some fairly mediocre labour laws, it has labour laws that employers are…

  • The Ethical Failing of the Law Society of British Columbia

    Trinity Western University (TWU) is a University in British Columbia that explicitly holds certain Christian creeds at its foundation. In their own words, they hold a “Christ-centred approach to education”, whatever that means. They have been in the news recently as they’ve started a law school on their premises, and it has come to the…

  • Georgia Police Kill Diabetic Black Man After Family Calls 911 Requesting Ambulance

    I don’t have anything to add to this, I just want to spread the awareness around. Alicia Herron, Roberson’s fiancé and girlfriend of 10 years, says she called 911 to request an ambulance for Roberson out of concern for his diabetic condition. But police arrived at their home instead. Arguably, a simple mistake on the part…

  • The Death Penalty as Retribution

    The next argument that is put forward in favour of the death penalty is that it’s required as part of retributive justice. The major problem with this position is that it has no basis in any sound ethical theories, and appears to be nothing more than a holdover from various religions.

  • The Death Penalty, Deterrence in Practice

    In Part 1 of this series, I dealt with the plausibility of the model in favour of Deterrence. But let’s forget all about that for a moment. Let’s put aside all the science behind our decision processes, how the human brain works, and all of that stuff. Like Deterrence-advocates, let’s pretend that science hasn’t moved…

  • The Death Penalty, Deterrence in Principle

    This is going to be the first part of a four-part series on the death penalty, There are two main arguments trotted out in favour, both of which I feel fail to be convincing. I’ll get to them, but first I need to sketch out some philosophical/ethical commitments. It helps to get these out of…