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.

Go to the Registration form to register. Conference fee: $100, student rate $25.00.