Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘supreme court’

The U.S. Supreme Court has been hard at work, ensuring that all Americans have the right the own handguns.

Of course, with fifty million potential gunshot wound victims without health insurance, one would think that the Founding Fathers might have anticipated the need for a universal right to healthcare in the Constitution too, no?

Watch this one carefully, especially if it makes it past California and to the U.S. Supreme Court. It could be big.

I was reserving judgment on yesterday’s Supreme Court Decision on healthcare because I wanted to give everyone a chance to calm down before reacting.

With public healthcare practically the Canadian religion, passions are undertstandably running high. Half the country is in hysterics because they’re afraid of the door being open to a two-tier system that will favour the rich, deny the poor, and turn us all into the worst Canadian nightmare: the United States. The other half of the country is decrying the decision as too soft, saying that more private healthcare is the only thing that will save us from total ruin and a third-world medical system.

As for me, I’m somewhere in between. I’ve pretty much always considered myself mostly in the public system camp, because I think that some things ought to be universally accessible regardless of ability to pay. Yes, this contradicts my position on university education, and no, I don’t think that’s hypocritical, because higher education is an investment into the future while healthcare is a basic survival tool.

On the other hand, only a fool would deny that our system is badly, badly broken. The universal system works nicely only if it’s universally good, or at the very least, universally adequate. But it falls apart if the only things universal about the system are doctor and nursing shortages, outdated equipment and mile-long waiting lists.

I’m also pragmatic enough to recognize that the ideals of universal healthcare fall apart when it’s personal. It’s all very well and good to say that everyone should get the same treatment… but when it’s my friend or family member, I want the best damn care in existence for them. And if better care exists but a law stands forbidding them to seek it out, then I would be the first to fight that law.

Unlike the Quebec Supreme Court, I don’t believe this is strictly a case of individual versus collective rights. I think it has much more to do with government incompetence and mis-management of funds and resources. The idea of universal healthcare is a good one, but we’ve messed it up royally over the years. There’s a doctor shortage because, as a monopoly, the healthcare system took them for granted, causing them to seek opportunties in the States or elsewhere. There are waiting lists because the government is so busy spending money on useless nonsense, so there’s not enough left for the healthcare system.

In short, in an ideal world, this court case shouldn’t have even been necessary in the first place, because the healthcare system would provide a good standard of care to everyone. But it’s become increasingly clear that without some private involvement to fill in the serious gaps in our system, it will collapse. a judgment forbidding it would be based on a nonexistent ideal and not on reality, which is why the Supreme Court was right to overturn it.

The Canadian Supreme Court issued its decision on gay marriage today in a historic judgement that essentially kicked the issue back into the hands of lawmakers:

In a landmark ruling, Canada’s Supreme Court said the government was within its constitutional rights to change the definition of marriage to allow gay and lesbian weddings.

[ . . . ]

The legislation is expected to win the necessary support in parliament, after it is introduced by the government early next year.

But the court ruled that religious officials could not be compelled to marry same sex couples, if the practice ran counter to their beliefs.

It also declined to rule on the question of whether a change to the laws regarding same-sex marriage was required by the constitution, a move that could complicate the task of shepherding the draft law through parliament.

This is a nice ’something for everyone’ compromise. For those in favour of gay marriage, it cleared the way for a new definition of marriage. For those opposed, it didn’t compel the issue on a constitutional basis, nor did it step on the toes of religious autonomy. For those who believe that this was a matter for legislators and not judges, the Supreme Court essentially agreed.

It’s a shame that the court didn’t have the courage to decisively say that discrimination against gay people is against the spirit of the Charter of Rights. This ruling reminds me that sometimes, trying to be everything to everyone means ending up being nothing to nobody.

The ball’s in Parliament’s court now. A vote for gay marriage is expected to pass fairly easily, with the NDP, the Bloc, and most Liberals voting for, and the Conservatives voting against. But on principle, I disagree that matters such as rights should be decided by a majority-rule vote.

I suppose I’ll have to be patient as I wait for the country to catch up to that thinking. After all, at least we’re a lot further ahead on the issue than our US neighbours.

The Supreme Court of Canada is set to issue its ruling on gay marriage on Thursday:

The ruling will be handed down just two months after the court heard a high-profile reference case from the federal government — an unusually short period of deliberation in such a seemingly complex case.

The reference, launched after appellate courts in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec legalized same-sex marriage, asked the court four questions.

The first question is whether the federal government has jurisdiction to alter the definition of marriage. The second involves the constitutionality of Ottawa’s plan to redefine marriage to include gays and lesbians.

The third question involves whether religious institutions are legally protected from having to marry same-sex couples. The fourth question — added on the eve of last spring’s federal election campaign — involves the constitutionality of the existing exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage.

There’s a lot of speculation about what might happen. Canadians are very divided on the issue. I’ve made my opinion clear, and I don’t see how the court could really rule against gay marriage given the trends of legalization of it by province after province. But I wonder if they’ll somehow find a way to strike a compromise to avoid antagonizing the conservative right, given the precarious minority government situation of the Liberals. The Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics, but the justices live in the same world we do and see the same polling data that we do.

Here’s hoping that the court hands down a judgement that strikes down the discrimination inherent in the current definition of marrriage – of course, still respecting the rights of religions to decide for themselves.

Because of things like this:

Republican senator who has questioned whether an abortion opponent could win approval to the U.S. Supreme Court must agree to back President Bush’s nominees if he is to head the committee acting on those nominations, the Senate’s Republican leader said.

Bush has four years to fill Supreme Court seats with basically no opposition. He doesn’t have to think about future re-election anymore. He has a majority in both houses and a huge debt to the far-right conservative Christian groups. Stacking the court to overturn Roe v. Wade may be only the beginning.

Gay marriage is now legal in Nova Scotia.

That makes 5 of 10 provinces and 1 of 3 territories to date to legalize gay marriage. Within the year it will likely be legal everywhere, marking a giant step forward for human rights in Canada.

In the meantime, several American states are proposing constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage, including Ohio, Georgia and Oklahoma. Bans have already passed in 6 states.

The Canadian Supreme Court is due to hear arguments next month on proposed legislation legalizing gay marriage nationwide. It’s been a long time coming. Let’s hope our neighbours to the South sit up and take notice.

Religious Jews will be allowed to build succahs, according to the Supreme Court of Canada, who ruled against their condo association that was trying to limit them from doing so:

In a 5-4 decision, the justices said the state can’t regulate personal religious beliefs.

“A claimant need not show some sort of objective religious obligation, requirement or precept to invoke freedom of religion,” Justice Franck Iacobucci wrote for the majority.

“It is the religious or spiritual essence of an action, not any mandatory or perceived-as-mandatory nature of its observance, that attracts protection.

“The state is in no position to be, nor should it become, the arbiter of religious dogma.”

B’nai Brith, which intervened in this case, had the following reaction:

Allan Adel, National Chair of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights, reacting to the news, stated: “We are satisfied with the decision of the Supreme Court, which has applied a broad interpretation to the Charter guarantee of freedom of religion and believe it to be in the best interests of all Canadians. The Succah ruling is an important, groundbreaking case that champions the cause of religious freedom in Canada and will have important ramifications well beyond the immediate facts of the case.”

Personally, I agree. While not religious, I tend to think that anyone should have the right and freedom to practice a religious belief that doesn’t harm or infringe upon the rights of someone else. The condo association had no real reason to ban the succahs, and people want to build them on their own private property. There are a lot of fine lines and open questions when it comes to religious freedoms, but this ruling makes sense.

And speaking of important court rulings today, our supreme court at home has been tackling an important issue: music downloads.

Today, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that ISP’s don’t have to pay royalties to musicians to compensate them for the lost revenue from people downloading their music for free:

The court ruled that companies that provide access to the worldwide web are “intermediaries” who are not subject to copyright law.

[ . . . ]

“This decision is a victory for Canadians who have come to rely on the Internet as an increasingly important part of their daily lives,” said Jay Kerr-Wilson, the society’s vice-president for legal affairs.

This one, I agree with. Should we fine Canada Post for the costs of mail fraud? Should Bell Canada have to pay for people using the telephone to run scams? All the Supreme Court did today was reaffirm the principle that a technology is neutral, and that it is the responsibility of the people using it to obey the law, not of the ISPs to pay for those who don’t.

In a landmark ruling with countless political implications, the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that a 30 km stretch of the security fence must be re-routed in order to avoid negatively affecting the quality of life of the Palestinian people living nearby.

This ruling has sent shockwaves through the Israeli, Palestinian, and international communities. The Palestinians are trumpeting it as a triumph, but they might not have been reading carefully enough:

Dahla argued that the decision to build the fence in the territories was a political rather than a security decision, and international law prohibits the military commander from making political decisions.

The justices rejected this argument.

“We examined the petitioners’ arguments and have come to the conclusion, based upon the facts before us, that the fence is motivated by security concerns,” Barak wrote.

The ruling instead spoke of the need to weigh the legitimate security concerns of Israelis against the harm that the fence’s route would cause to the daily lives of the Palestinians.

Something tells me that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t spend too much of its time weighing its policy of terrorism against the harm caused to the daily lives of Israelis.