Conference: Social Science Evidence in Charter Litigation

The David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights Presents

Social Science Evidence in Charter Litigation:
Developments in 30 Years of Fact Finding

November 9, 2012
8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

Flavelle House (78 Queen's Park),
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto

Opening Plenary Panel: The Challenges for Judges - Justice Robert Sharpe (Ontario Court of Appeal); Justice Susan Himel (Ontario Superior Court of Justice - Bedford v Canada); Justice Lynn Smith (Supreme Court of British Columbia - Carter v Canada).

Other panels and speakers include:

• A panel consisting of Robert McDermid, Yasmin Dawood and Michael Pal addressing the use of social science in election law, including R v Bryan (transmission of election results) and Harper v Canada (third-party spending)
• Carl Baar reflecting on the Askov case, in which social science evidence of institutional delay resulted in stays for thousands of criminal trials
• William Wicken on the historian’s contribution to litigating aboriginal rights;
• A panel on social science evidence in relation to faith, morality and Charter rights, including the influence of same-sex marriage jurisprudence on the polygamy challenge, the difficulty of proving polygamy’s harms, and feminist perspectives on judging social science evidence
• A panel focusing on practice and ethical issues (application for accreditation for professionalism hours for lawyers is pending)

See the Asper Centre website for more information and to register.