Welcome to Cases That Should Have Gone to the Supreme Court of Canada, But Didn’t! This week, lawyer Kyla Lee discusses assisted dying
Acumen Law Corporation lawyer Kyla Lee gives her take on a made-in-Canada court case each week and discusses why these cases should have been heard by Canada’s highest court: the Supreme Court of Canada.
Julia Lamb filed a lawsuit against the federal government on the basis of the new assisted dying laws that she argues contain the same constitutional defects that were originally found by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter case. In her case, she argued that she should be able to rely on all of the factual findings and evidence relied on by the court in the Carter decision, rather than having to relitigate everything.
The attorney general of Canada filed a response indicating that it did not agree that the facts and the evidence were the same in relation to the issue of assisted dying and asking that the matter is relitigated in its entirety.
This case raises a very important issue. Where you have legislation that’s declared unconstitutional by the SCC, and it’s replaced with new legislation that arguably shares those same flaws, shouldn’t it be better and wouldn’t it be easier and more efficient to just allow these cases to be heard on the basis of the original evidence filed in the original hearing?
Watch the video for more.
