John T. Saywell, 1921-2011

The death of John T. Saywell is very sad news for his many fans--former students, colleagues and readers of his acclaimed works on Canadian political, constitutional and legal history. Professor Saywell had a long and distinguished academic career and touched the lives of many. He will be missed.

From his obit in the Globe today:

Throughout his long and distinguished career, he took 'many roads less travelled.' In the process, he deepened Canada's knowledge and understanding of itself, from the constitution and federalism to the offices of the Lieutenant-Governor and the Governor-General. He also chronicled Canadian history, economics, politics, culture and society as Editor of the Canadian Historical Review (1957 - 1963), and as Editor of the Canadian Annual Review (1960 - 1979), reviving and revitalizing these two journals. John's ground-breaking scholarship was recognized through a number of major awards. His 1957 book, The Office of Lieutenant-Governor: A Study in Canadian Government and Politics, won the Delancey K. Jay Prize at Harvard University. Another, the 1991 'Just Call Me Mitch': The Life of Mitchell F. Hepburn, won the Floyd Chalmers Award for the best book on Ontario history. His 2002 study of the Supreme Court of Canada, entitled The Lawmakers: Judicial Power and the Shaping of Canadian Federalism, won the John W. Dafoe Prize for 'distinguished writing on Canada and/or Canada's place in the world'....

A private family cremation... was held on April 23rd. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation in John's memory be made to the John T. Saywell Prize for Canadian Legal History (c/o the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History (www.osgoodesociety.ca), to the Toronto East General Hospital (www.tegh.on.ca), or to a charity of choice. Friends and colleagues are invited to 'The Way It Was: Remembering Jack', a celebration of his life, to be held on Father's Day, Sunday, June 19th from 11:30 A.M. at the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre, 6 Garamond Court (off Wynford Drive, west of the Don Valley Parkway) in North York, 416.441.2345. Condolences www.rskane.ca. R.S. Kane 416-221-1159.

Helge Dedek on the Role of Rights in Blackstone's Commentaries

The venerable Blackstone seems to be attracting a lot of interest these days. Dr. Helge Dedek, who teaches Roman Law and Legal Traditions (among other things) at the McGill University Faculty of Law, has just posted "Of Rights Superstructural, Inchoate and Triangular: Some Remarks on the Role of Rights in Blackstone’s Commentaries" on SSRN as part of the accepted paper series. You can read it there, or as part of THE RIGHTS OF PRIVATE LAW, A. Robertson, D. Nolan, eds., Hart Publishing, 2011 eventually.

Here's the abstract:

Peter Birks has famously described the way in which rights operate in Blackstone’s legal cosmos as “superstructural.” In order to fully understand what this assessment entails, we will have to take a closer look at how the elements of Blackstone’s conceptual mechanism – right/wrong, rights, wrongs, and remedies – interact and complement each other. This “juridical” analysis, however, will inevitably take us back to the more foundational aspects of Blackstone’s vision of private law. In a formalist jurisprudence, Ernest J. Weinrib has explained, conceptual constructions and philosophical foundations are closely and intrinsically linked in the sense that the former are the expression of the latter – an insight particularly helpful, I believe, in Blackstone’s case, where the explicit verbalization of philosophical underpinnings remains fragmentary and basic theoretical assumptions have to be gleaned from doctrinal construction and categorization. As we shall see, the rights-remedies division in Blackstone’s organizational scheme is the expression of a “dualist” conception of the rights-remedies relationship: Blackstone’s perception of private law is not a Weinribian vision of a coherent, transactional unit, defined by the correlativity of right and duty. The “rights” that come into existence when a “wrong” is committed are of such nature that they can only be perceived as a triangular relationship that necessarily involves plaintiff, defendant and the state.

Mélanie Brunet online

As part of my work with the Osgoode History and Archives Project,  I have been reading up on the history of the profession and legal education in Ontario. A week or so ago I started on Melanie Brunet's excellent doctoral dissertation, "Becoming Lawyers: Gender, Legal Education and Professional Identity Formation in Canada, 1920-1980" (U of T, Department of History, 2006). Melanie was the original project coordinator of OHAP, and uploaded the dissertation with some other secondary sources to a drive on the law school server to which I have recently been given access, so I have been reading it there.

Just today I discovered that Melanie has uploaded a very readable copy free to all online at Academia.edu.  Also on her page is a link to a fantastic report she wrote in 2000 for the Department of Justice, "Out of the Shadows: The Civil Law Tradition in the Department of Justice, Canada, 1868–2000." Like many anglophone legal academics, I know far too little about the civil law in Canada, and I'm looking forward to starting to redress that a bit by reading the report this summer.

Note: I know there is supposed to be an accent aigu on the first e in Melanie, but I can't figure out a way to do that on Blogger.

We've been noticed!

The list of our betters in the legal, historical and legal-historical blogospheres who have publicized this blog continues to grow!
In chronological order: Christopher Moore's History News (self-explanatory), The Legal History Blog (Mary Dudziak, Dan Ernst and entourage in the U.S.),The Idea File (Political Scientist Janet Ajzenstat),  IFLS (Professor Sonia Lawrence, Director of the Institute of Feminist Legal Studies of Osgoode Hall Law School), and most recently the online Canadian legal magazine Slaw (uber-blogger and Osgoode emeritus professor Simon Fodden). We have officially arrived! Thanks to everyone. I read you all faithfully: yes, suspiciously backscratching, but true nonetheless! If I've missed anyone, please let me know.

Philip Girard to be James L. Lewtas Visting Professor at Osgoode in 2011-2012

More good news for Osgoode Hall Law School: Philip Girard, who has been a visitor at the Centre of Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto while on sabbatical leave this year from the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University, will spend next year as the James L. Lewtas Visiting Professor at Osgoode. His book Lawyers and Legal Culture in British North America:  Beamish Murdoch of Halifax will be launched by the Osgoode Society in August. Philip, Jim Phillips and Blake Brown are continuing work on their major project "Canadian Legal History, 1500-2000."  Philip and Jim's piece "Rethinking 'the Nation' in National Legal History:  A Canadian Perspective" will appear in the upcoming spring issue of the Law and History Review.


Editor's Note: Yes, I know that the blog has been more than a bit Osgoode and Toronto-centric. We would be happy to publish news from all over--email us at the addresses in the right hand column!

J.L. Granatstein on employment discrimination on religious grounds in the Canadian armed forces

Military historian J.L.Granatstein has published "The Problem of Religion in Canadian Forces Postings" in
the autumn 2010 issue of Canadian Military History ( Vol. 19 Issue 4). This short (7 page) article presents a charter challenge in historical context.

Here's the abstract:

The article presents a legal brief which was used in a Canadian court case in March 1998 wherein the plaintiff, Canadian Navy Lieutenant Andrew S. Liebmann, was dismissed from an appointed position during the Gulf War in 1991 due to the fact that he practiced the religion of Judaism. It examines the history of discriminatory practices in enlistment procedures for the Canadian Forces beginning with the First World War and describes how the screening of Liebmann for his religious and ethnic practices prior to peacekeeping mission in the Middle East were [sic] a violation of the rights provided by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

More submissions requested

For the Oliver Prize (best published paper by a student.)
And the McMurtry Fellowship, (to support research in legal history by a doctoral or post-doctoral student.)

Please distribute widely.