Lorraine Weinrib

Lorraine Weinrib

Role: Professor Emeriti - Professor Emerita
l.weinrib@utoronto.ca
416-978-5075

Overview

Lorraine E. Weinrib was appointed to the Faculty of Law and the Department of Political Science in 1988. Previously, she worked in the Crown Law Office - Civil, Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario), holding the position of Deputy Director of Constitutional Law and Policy at the time of her departure. Her work included legal advice and policy development on constitutional issues, as well as extensive litigation, frequently in the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1993, Professor Weinrib was Visiting Professor (Fulbright Fellowship) at the University of Michigan Law School; in 1994 at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Halbert Academic Exchange); and in 2001 and 2002 at the Tel Aviv Faculty of Law. She also spent a month at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1994, a visit that included the opportunity to deliver the Oliver Schreiner Memorial Lecture. She holds law degrees from Yale and Toronto, and an undergraduate degree from York University.

Professor Weinrib teaches the first year constitutional law course as well as advanced courses on the Charter, constitutional litigation, and comparative constitutional law. Her writing, in which she advocates the institutional coherence of the Charter, includes articles on the interpretation of sections 1 and 33, the theoretical dimension of the Supreme Court of Canada's Charter jurisprudence, the process leading up to the 1982 amendments to the Constitution, and studies of leading cases, e.g., Morgentaler (abortion), Ford (override), Keegstra (hate promotion) and Rodriguez (assisted suicide). She has also written on the topic of women in the legal profession. Her current work focusses on the legitimacy of the post-WWII model of judicially enforced rights-protection, of which Canada's Charter is both an example and a model for other countries' constitutional development. In addition, Professor Weinrib has published essays on the special contribution that the Canadian Jewish Community has made to the protection of rights in the lead up to the adoption of the Charter as well as in public engagement and the support of test cases in the past 20 years. 

Professor Weinrib is currently at work on a monograph entitled The Supreme Court of Canada in the Age of Rights.

In 2006, Prof. Weinrib was featured in a special exhibit as one of the Law School's Women Trailblazers.

Areas of Interest

  • Constitutional Law & Theory
  • Comparative Law
  • Law & Religion

books

Co-editor, Constitutional Law:  Cases and Materials (1994)

Articles

“Transnational Perspectives on the U.S. Transnational Law Controversy” (2011) Tulsa Law Review, Vol. 47. 379-404. (Actual publication date, Summer 2012)

"This New Democracy... : ' Justice Iacobucci and Canada's Rights Revolution", (2007) 57 UTLJ, 399-413.

"A Primer on International Law and the Canadian Charter", (2006) Nat'l J Const. L 313-331. 

"Speech, religion and the traditional family: clashing orthodoxies within the modern constitutional state", forthcoming in A. Sajo (ed.), Censorial Sensitivities: Free Speech and Religion in a Fundamentalist World, in A. Sajo (Ed.), (Utrecht, Eleven International Publishing, 2007) 165-193.

"Introduction", Journal of Law and Equality, special issue: Equality, the Heart of A Just Society (Celebrating 20th Anniversary of Equality Guarantee under the Charter) Law and Equality journal

"The Postwar Paradigm and American Exceptionalism", in S. Choudhry ed., Migration of Constitutional Ideas, Cambridge University Press, 2007 at 83-113 (download paper)

"Charter Perspectives on Chaoulli: The Body and the Body Politic", in Access to Care, Access to Justice: The Legal Debate Over Private Health Insurance in Canada, Colleen Flood et aI, ed. (Toronto: Univ of Toronto Press, 2005)

"Comment on Canadian Constitutionalism", in Georg Nolte, ed., European and US Constitutionalism, Cambridge University Press (previously listed as submitted) (download paper)

"The Charter's First Twenty Years: Assessing the Impact and Anticipating the Future", 2002 Isaac Pitblado Keynote Lecture, 1- 1-18

"Human Dignity as a Rights-Protecting Principle", published in the proceedings of Ontario Bar Association Third Annual Charter Conference and in (2004) 17 N.J.C.L. 219-239

"Constitutionalism in the Age of Rights - A Prolegomenon", Schreiner Memorial Lecture, Jubilee issue (2004) 121 The South African Law Journal, 278 - 291

"Developments in Section 1 Jurisprudence", Second Annual Charter Conference, Materials, October 9, 2003 (10 pages, singled spaced)

"Canada's Charter: Comparative Influences, International Stature" in Debra M. McAllister & Adam M. Dodek, eds., The Charter at Twenty, Law and Practice (Toronto: OBA, 2003) 491-501.

"The Canadian Charter's Transformative Aspirations", (2003) 19 S.C.L.R. (2d) 17-37, reprinted in The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Reflections on the Charter After Twenty Years,eds. Joseph Magnet, Gerald-A. Beaudoin, Gerald Gall and Christopher Manfredi, (Toronto: Butterworths, 2003) 17-37 (download paper) 

"'Do Justice to Us': Jews and the Constitution of Canada", M. Brown ed., (Chair of Jewish Studies Department, York University), Not Written in Stone: Jews, Constitutions and Constitutionalism in Canada, (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2003) 33-68

"Constitutional Conceptions, Constitutional Comparativism", in Vicki Jackson and Mark Tushnet, eds., Defining the Field of Comparative Constitutional Law (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2002.) 23-81

"Canada's Charter of Rights: Paradigm Lost?", (2002) 6 Review of Constitutional Studies 1-59

"Taking Rights Frankly: Justice Iacobucci and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms", (2001) 15 Italian Canadian 24-29; Special Issue in Honour of Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci

"Terrorism's Challenge to the Constitutional Order", in The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill, R.J. Daniels, P. Macklem, and K. Roach eds. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001) 93-108 (abstract)

"Constitutional Values and Private Law in Canada", co-authored with E.J. Weinrib, Daphne Barak-Erez and Daniel Friedmann eds., Constitutional Rights in Private Law (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2002) 43-72.

"Ensuring Equality: The Role of the Community", Ruth Klein and Frank Dimant, eds. From Immigration to Integration: The Canadian Jewish Experience (Toronto: Malcolm Lester Publishing, 2001) 69-92 

"The Supreme Court of Canada in the Age of Rights: Constitutional Democracy, the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights Under Canada's Constitution" (2001) 80 Can. Bar Rev. 699.

"Constitutional Values And Private Law In Canada" co-authored with Ernest J. Weinrib, in Daphne Barak-Erez and Daniel Friedmann eds., Constitutional Rights in Private Law (London: Hart Publishing, 2001) [forthcoming].

"Canada’s Rights Revolution: From Politics to Law” (1999) 33 Israel Law Review 13.

"The Charter Critics: Strangers in a Strange Land" in The Judiciary as Third Branch of Government: Manifestations and Challenges to Legitimacy (Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice: Les Editions Themis, 1999) 245.
 
"The Activist Constitution” (1999) 20 Policy Options 27.  Reprinted in Paul Howe and Peter H. Russell, eds., Judicial Power and Canadian Democracy (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999) 80 (download paper)

"Trudeau and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:  A Question of Constitutional Maturation” in Andrew Cohen and J.L. Granatstein, eds., Trudeau’s Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, (Toronto: Random House, 1998) at 259.

"Sustaining Constitutional Values:  The Schreiner Legacy” (1998) 14 South African Journal on Human Rights 351. 

"Canada's Charter: Rights Protection in the Cultural Mosaic" (1996) Cardozo J. Int. & Comp. L. 395 (download paper)

"The Exercise of Public Power under Bill – 26” (1996) 5 Canada Watch. 

"The Role of the Courts in the Resolution of Civil Disputes” (1996) Law Reform Commission of Ontario, Access to Civil Justice Project.
 
"Limitations on Rights in a Constitutional Democracy” (1996) 6 Caribbean Law Review 428.  (Revision of an article prepared for a conference, “The Nature and Legitimacy of Judicial Review,” December 1994, Israel.)

"Comparison of Rights Protection Under the U.S. Constitution and the Canadian Charter of  Rights and Freedoms” (Symposium on "Protecting Rights, Protecting Hate?  Comparative American, Canadian and Israeli Approaches") (1995) 6 Touro International Law Rev  9.  (http://www.tourolaw.edu/Publications/internationallawrev/vol6/part1.html)

"The Body and the Body Politic: Assisted Suicide under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms” (1994) 39 McGill Law Journal 618. (download paper)

"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a Model for the New Israeli Basic Laws” (1993) 4 Constitutional Forum 85 (download paper)

"The Morgentaler Judgment:  A Study in Constitutional Rights, Legislative Intention and Institutional Design" (1992) 42 University of Toronto Law Journal 22.  Reprinted in part in D. Dyzenhaus and A. Ripstein, eds., Law and Morality: Readings in Legal Philosophy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

"Constituting Constitutional Change in Canada:  Of Diligence and Dice", Book Review of Canada's Constitution Act 1982 & Amendments:  A Documentary History by Anne F. Bayefsky  (1992) 42 University of Toronto Law Journal 207.

Op-ed pieces on constitutional proposals:  Globe & Mail, Canadian Jewish News

Legal Analysis of the Draft Legal Text Constitutional Proposals (25 pages, single spaced), signed by 15 legal academics, released just before vote on Charlottetown Accord.

"The Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of Canada in the Charter Era:  A Study in Judicial Role and Institutional Design" Appointing Judges: Philosophy, Politics and Practice, Ontario Law Reform Commission Publication, 1991 at 109.

"Hate Promotion in a Free and Democratic Society:  R. v. Keegstra" (1991) 36 McGill L.J. 1416.  Reprinted in S.J. Heyman, ed., Hate Speech and the Constitution, (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996).

"Women in the Legal Profession:  Old Issues, Current Problems" in Women in the Legal Profession - the Law Firm of the 1980's:  Attracting and Retaining Women Practitioners, (1990) Law Society of Upper Canada Gazette 71.

"Learning to Live With the Override" (1990) 36 McGill Law Journal 541.

"Constitutional Change in Canada" The Winnipeg Free Press (June 22, 1990).

"Emergency in Canadian Constitutional Law" (XIIIth International Congress of Comparative Law, Montreal, August, 1990) ) Yvon Blais Contemporary Law Proceedings (1991) at 466.

"Bill C-43, An Act Respecting Abortion" (1991) 25 Law Soc Gazette 147.

"Does Money Talk?  Commercial Expression in the Canadian Constitutional Context" Freedom of Expression and the Charter (Carswell, 1990) at 336.

"Why the Dean?" (Paper in Proceedings of Law Reform Commission of Canada Symposium:  Normative Order in the Administrative State), (1990) 40 University of Toronto Law Journal 486.

"Overview of Constitutional Issues Affecting Freedom of Religion and Conscience" in Constitutional Issues in Religion and the Law, Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto (1988).

"Reading the Charter" in Administrative and Constitutional Litigation, Law Society of Upper Canada 1987.

"The Supreme Court of Canada and the Charter” in Administrative Law and Constitutional Litigation, Law Society of Upper Canada 1987.

"Section 15 of the Charter: Current Judicial Approaches" Law Society of Upper Canada, April 1987.

"The Supreme Court of Canada and Section 1 of the Charter" (1986) 10 Sup. Ct. L. Rev. 469 (download paper) 

"The Religion Clauses: Reading the Lesson" (1986) 8 Sup. Ct. L. Rev. 507 (download paper)

Law Times Column: "Second Opinion"

Professor Emerita