Osgoode Society AGM (with pictures!)

 Prizewinners!


Jonathan Penney and Jim Phillips

 

Daniel Rueck and Jim Phillips



Doug Harris and Jim Phillips



The AGM of the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History, held at Osgoode Hall in Toronto Tuesday evening, was as always, an entertaining and convivial experience. Here are some highlights of the event. (Thanks to Trish McMahon for providing some of the pics.)

Jim Phillips (in a tie, no less) handed out prizes on behalf of the society:

Doug Harris of UBC ws awarded the John T. Saywell Prize for Constitutional Legal History (awarded in alternate years) for Landing Native Fisheries: Indian Reserves and Fishing Rights in British Columbia, 1849-1925 (UBC Press, 2008) He spoke about the similarities between his work and that of the late Professor Saywell.

The R.Roy McMurtry Fellowship was awarded to Daniel Rueck, a McGill University Ph.D. candidate who will soon be a visiting scholar at the University of Western Ontario. During the fellowship, Mr. Rueck will continue researching  Mohawk systems of land tenure and land use. He spoke of the funding gap for students completing their studies which the Fellowship attempts to redress.

The Peter Oliver Prize for best published student writing was awarded to Jonathan Penney, a doctoral student at Balliol College, Oxford for his article Ivan Rand’s Ancient Constitutionalism, published in 2010 (University of New Brunswick Law Journal Vol. 61 No. 1). Mr. Rueck spoke about being inspired by researching Rand's jurisprudence.



Justice Robert Sharpe



Mr. Justice Robert Sharpe of the Ontario Court of Appeal then addressed the meeting on the subject of his forthcoming book, The Lazier Murder: Prince Edward County, 1884. This is the Osgoode Society member's book for the coming year. The book will be an intensive examination of a murder investigation and trial--a "non-leading" case--which speaks to themes of the influence of the community on criminal justice in the nineteenth century, and in turn the impact of the trial and its outcome on the community.