Leonid Sirota
@doubleaspect.blog
800 followers 170 following 340 posts
Legal academic; mostly Canadian and comparative public law. Associate Professor @unirdg-law.bsky.social; Senior Fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute; blogger, doubleaspect.blog
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doubleaspect.blog
New post, on recent events: "Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear", even if that means choosing utopia over hope.
Nothing Has Changed
Some thoughts on recent events
doubleaspect.blog
doubleaspect.blog
In light of the FCC's role in the imposition of Trumpian cancel culture in the US, Canadians should consider how they feel about a CBC answerable to a Trump imitator and a CRTC staffed by his appointees. The time to reduce government power is when the decent guys have it - after that, it's too late.
doubleaspect.blog
ICYMI
doubleaspect.blog
New post: no law, I'm afraid, but an attempt to think through what the Last Night of the Proms and the "Unite the Kingdom" protest tell us about the different ways in which love of country manifests itself.
Land of Hope and Worry
On love of country
doubleaspect.blog
doubleaspect.blog
New post: no law, I'm afraid, but an attempt to think through what the Last Night of the Proms and the "Unite the Kingdom" protest tell us about the different ways in which love of country manifests itself.
Land of Hope and Worry
On love of country
doubleaspect.blog
doubleaspect.blog
I don't think I have to pretend anything. It's enough to judge the facts as they arise. There is, right now, far too much judging of people based on their real or presumed belonging to some shapeless but hostile "them". It's no different from wokeness, and I want none of that.
doubleaspect.blog
I'm not aware of Paolo having sat on a Canadian hiring committee. I think this is a matter of basic individualism, which conservatives used to believe in until five minutes ago, but sure, I'd rather be a Menshevik than a Bannonite.
doubleaspect.blog
I don't presume bad faith absent actual evidence.
doubleaspect.blog
En rappel: les arguments à l'appui de la contestation de la nomination du juge Robert Leckey à la Cour supérieure du Québec ne sont pas sérieux. doubleaspect.blog/2025/09/15/n...
N’importe quoi
La contestation de la nomination du juge Leckey à la Cour supérieure est sans fondement
doubleaspect.blog
Reposted by Leonid Sirota
emmettmacfarlane.com
Just learning of this patently ridiculous legal challenge now - this thread is spot-on.
doubleaspect.blog
Some judicial appointment shenanigans to finish your week in style! Justice Leckey's appointment to the Quebec Superior Court is being challenged by a group led by Daniel Turp. Some thoughts below. Tl;dr: this has no legs. 1/5 www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2...
Cour supérieure du Québec | Un groupe conteste la nomination du juge Robert Lackey
Un groupe conteste la récente nomination du juge Robert Leckey à la Cour supérieure du Québec, affirmant qu’elle était illégale et anticonstitutionnelle.
www.lapresse.ca
doubleaspect.blog
Nouveau billet, reprenant en français mon argument à l'effet que la nomination du juge Leckey à la Cour supérieure du Québec est valide et le recours qui cherche à la contester, sans fondement. doubleaspect.blog/2025/09/15/n...
N’importe quoi
La contestation de la nomination du juge Leckey à la Cour supérieure est sans fondement
doubleaspect.blog
doubleaspect.blog
What's left is an argument about vibes. It was bad enough when that carried the day in the Nadon affair, but there was a plausible textual argument there too. Not so here. I hope this goes nowhere fast. 5/5
doubleaspect.blog
Now statute: the Judges Act is where 10-year requirement comes from, but it can be met by bar membership in "any province", not necessarily the one from which the judge is ultimately appointed. The French text is a smidgen less explicit, but to the same effect. 4/5
doubleaspect.blog
That's not exactly the case. Consider the Constitution first. The relevant provision is s 98 of the Constitution Act, 1867. Neither it nor the other provisions in the Judicature part specify a minimum length of bar membership. 3/5
doubleaspect.blog
Key issue: Justice Leckey had only 7 years' standing at the Quebec Bar — although I take it that he'd been called to the Ontario bar for rather longer. (I've been unable to find how many.) The claim and even the article seem to assume that 10 is the constitutional and statutory requirement. But! 2/5
doubleaspect.blog
Some judicial appointment shenanigans to finish your week in style! Justice Leckey's appointment to the Quebec Superior Court is being challenged by a group led by Daniel Turp. Some thoughts below. Tl;dr: this has no legs. 1/5 www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2...
Cour supérieure du Québec | Un groupe conteste la nomination du juge Robert Lackey
Un groupe conteste la récente nomination du juge Robert Leckey à la Cour supérieure du Québec, affirmant qu’elle était illégale et anticonstitutionnelle.
www.lapresse.ca
Reposted by Leonid Sirota
Reposted by Leonid Sirota
jadler1969.bsky.social
At heart religious toleration was about sharing civic space with those who disagreed about the most fundamental questions, who rejected divinity and truth, who spread heresy and threatened the eternal damnation of immortal souls. The stakes could not have been higher.
2/
Reposted by Leonid Sirota
jadler1969.bsky.social
It may be hard to fully comprehend what principles of religious toleration demanded, but it matters. If a religious adherent can be asked to tolerate those of another faith, we should be able to tolerate those who merely disagree about mere matters of politics or policy. 3/3
Reposted by Leonid Sirota
jadler1969.bsky.social
At moments like this it is worth considering and reflecting upon the history and principles of religious toleration. Such tolerance was not about being nice to people with different customs or holidays, but something far more profound.
1/
doubleaspect.blog
David Dyzenhaus thinks that originalism is illiberal: verfassungsblog.de/os5-snake-ch.... On his view, I am basically the same as Vermeule. So you'll forgive me for seeing any talk of proscribing ideological positions in the academy as an excuse that can just as well serve to get rid of me.
The Snake Charmers
verfassungsblog.de
doubleaspect.blog
The scope of what counts as legitimising fascism/racism/etc has been interpreted very broadly, as indeed has the scope of these words themselves. There are people who thought, or said, that I was a racist for criticising the appointment of an Indigenous, but in my view unqualified, judge to the SCC.
doubleaspect.blog
I've family members who were murdered in the Holocaust... I don't think we need to go there. I still worry about how people interpret "legitimising", because there's been plenty of bad faith in that regard in the last few years.