Course Director: Ian Greene
This course is being offered as a technology-enhanced learning course. Lectures will be held Friday afternoons from 2:30 to 4:00 in Stedman D; they will be videoconferenced to Glendon College in Room 144 Glendon Hall. Most tutorials will be conducted on WebCT at a time convenient to students; some will be held in person from 4:00 to 5:20.
All students in this course MUST register for a York WebCT
account.
To activate your York WebCT Account, first activate your York email,
and then go to this web page:
http://www.yorku.ca/fsc/webct/student/quickstart.htm#activatewebctservice
The course outline can be downloaded from the WebCT account, or you
can
click here: course
outline.
Students will be divided into
ten tutorial
groups of about 15 students each. Each group will prepare for a
mock
trial
to be held toward the end of term. Students will prepare written
assignments associated with the mock trial (eg. students assigned to be
judges will write judgments; students assigned as counsel will write
factums
[arguments]; students assigned as expert witnesses will write
affidavits
[reports].) Each mock trial will be videotaped and webstreamed
for
all tutorial groups to view.
The final examination will be held as follows:
|
|
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180 |
SLH A, SLH B |
Half the exam (50%) will
consist of objective
questions (eg. fill-in-the-blanks, and matching questions), and the
other half (50%) will consist of an essay question.
On the final exam, students
will
be given at least five essay topics to choose from, and must write on
only
one of the
topics. Each topic will focus specifically on one part
of the course (eg. court decisions involving POGG, or court decisions
involving 92(13) vs. 91(2)), but they will be broad enough so that
students can use knowledge from all parts of the course. I
recommend that to prepare for the essay, choose one broad subject area
of the course (eg. POGG, Trade & Commerce/Property & Civil
Rights, the Canadian court system, constitutional reform) and review
all of the required and suggested readings, as well as your class
notes, for that broad subject area. Your essay will be graded on
a) the extent to which you have demonstrated your knowledge and
understanding of course materials, b) your ability to develop and
logically pursue an argument relevant to the question, and c) the
clarity of your essay.
About 2/3 of the objective questions
will be taken from the part of the course after the mid-term
exam. A good way to study for the questions fromt the first part
of the course (the third of the exam prior to the mid-term) is to
review your mid-term exam. The final exam questions won't be
exactly the same, but if you know the right answer to the mid-term
you're likely to know the right answer to a similar question on the
final.
The objective questions will be
comprehensive. They
will cover every case that is on the course outline. What you
need to know about the cases is the name of the case, the impugned
legislation, whether the impugned legislation was upheld or struck down
(and why), and the significance of the case for our understanding of
the impact of judicial review of the division of powers or of
administrative law in Canada. (It's useful to know the
approximate date of the decision, or at least the order the cases were
decided, because this will help you not to get cases mixed up on the
exam. For example, in some of the matching questions, a case
might be referred to as an "early" JCPC decision, or a "recent" Supreme
Court decision. So, having an approximate knowledge of the date
of the case will help you. You won't be asked, however, in which
years particular decisions were made.) Many of the
objective questions will deal with cases, but others will deal with
other important facts from the study guide that you ought to know.
Strategy for final exam:
I
recommend that as soon as you receive the exam, go to the essay section
and choose the topic you are going to write on. Think of an
argument, and begin to jot down ideas you want included in your
essay. Then do the objective part of the exam, as quickly as you
can. If you can't remember an answer, leave it and come back to
it later. As you do the objective questions, additional ideas
will come to you that you might want in your essay, so keep adding to
your list. (Your mind is capable of multi-tasking!) When
you've finished the objective questions, focus on your essay. Are
you still happy with your argument? Then organize your ideas into
a coherent structure. As you write your paper, ensure that you
leave yourself enough time to compose a strong conclusion. Then
go back to the objective questions and do any that you couldn't
remember. Then proof-read your essay. Then hand it in and
celebrate.
Constitution Acts, 1867 to 1982
Highlights of the Canadian constitution
Case Brief Examples, by Kris Crawford Dickinson (Parsons and Russell)
How federally-appointed judges are selected