Associate Professor

Jackman Law Building
78 Queen's Park
Toronto, Ontario M5S 2C5 

Tel.: 416-978-4488

Richard Stacey works in public law with a research focus on how governments and their administrative branches uphold and fulfil, or can be encouraged to uphold and fulfil, their constitutional commitments. Richard holds undergraduate and law degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa and a PhD from New York University. He was law clerk to Justice Kate O’Regan and Justice Bess Nkabinde at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, and has taught law and political theory at universities around the world including the City University of New York Law School, the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town. Current research projects include an exploration of the relationship between the rule of law and popular sovereignty, and ongoing attempts to make sense of Canadian administrative law. 

Education
Ph.D., New York University, 2014
LLB, University of the Witwatersrand, 2004
BA (Hons), University of the Witwatersrand, 2002
Selected publications

Public Law’s Cerberus: A three-headed approach to Charter rights-limiting administrative decisions,’ (2023) Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 1 (https://doi.org/10.1017/cjlj.2023.8

The Limits and Legitimacy of Referendums (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022) (with Richard Albert).

"The Unnecessary Referendum: Popular Sovereignty in the Constitutional Interregnum", in Richard Albert and Richard Stacey (eds), The Limits and Legitimacy of Referendums (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).

"Constituting and regulating democracy: Kenya’s electoral commission and the courts in the 2010s" (with Victoria Miyandazi), (2021) 16 Asian Journal of Comparative Law, s193-s210.

"A Unified Model of Public Law: Charter Values and Reasonableness Review in Canada" (2021) 71 University of Toronto Law Journal, 338-375.

"The Magnetism of Moral Reasoning and the Principle of Proportionality in Comparative Constitutional Adjudication", (2019) 67 American Journal of Comparative Law 435.

"A Service Conception of the Constitution: Authority, Justification and the Rule of Law in Proportionality Jurisprudence" (2019) 9 Constitutional Court Review, 219-245

"The Dilemma of Indigenous Self-Government in Canada: Indigenous Rights and Canadian Federalism" (2018) 46 Federal Law Review 669.  

"Honour in Sovereignty: Can Crown consultation with Indigenous peoples erase Canada's sovereignty deficit?", (2018) 68 University of Toronto Law Journal 405.

"Falling short of constitutional norms: Does “normative (in)congruence” explain the courts’ inability to promote the right to water in South Africa?", (2018) 43 Law & Social Inquiry 796.

"Dynamic Regulatory Constitutionalism: Taking Legislation Seriously in the Judicial Enforcement of Economic and Social Rights", (2017) 31 Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy 85.

"Popular Sovereignty and Revolutionary Constitution-Making” in David Dyzenhaus and Malcolm Thorburn (eds), Philosophical Foundations of Constitutional Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2016.

Research areas
Aboriginal Law
Administrative Law
Canadian Constitutional Law
Charter of Rights
Comparative Law
Legal Theory

Publications