Between Exclusion and Assimilation: Experimentalizing Multiculturalism

With increasing frequency, members of cultural minorities are demanding not only equality and non-discrimination as individuals, but also the legal recognition of their collective identities. Their claims to cultural protection and accommodation are necessarily philosophical, political, moral, and (both constitutionally and normatively) legal. This paper is a reflection on the last dimension, the legal axis. The author sets out to delineate the descriptive, interpretive, and normative scope of section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He is influenced by the approaches to constitutional innovation expounded by theories of democratic experimentalism.The first part of the paper outlines the textual and normative framework of the Charter’s multiculturalism provision. Section 27 creates two distinct types of interests that give rise to claims: one individual and one group-based, described respectively as “accommodation” and “autonomy”.The second part of the paper applies the normative framework to two case studies: female genital cutting and sharia tribunals. These examples provide a setting in which to explore the potential of section 27 to address the cultural demands in ways that go beyond conventional doctrinal and normative understandings. The author suggests that an experimentalist interpretation of multiculturalism under section 27 would create a space in which different approaches and institutional arrangements could be tried in order to determine the best practices for handling difficult, highly contextual questions. Instead of limiting possibilities by adopting restrictive approaches that extinguish cultural claims and risk radicalizing groups, the author argues that the normative force of section 27 includes an imperative to create the institutional conditions within which measures can be tried and tested, with the expectation that benchmarks will emerge through practice.Les membres des minorités culturelles demandent, de plus en plus fréquemment, non seulement l’égalité et l’absence de discrimination en tant qu’individus, mais aussi la reconnaissance par le droit de leurs identités collectives. Leurs revendications de protection culturelle et d’accommodation sont philosophiques, politiques, morales et juridiques. Cet article est une réflexion sur l’aspect juridique de ces revendications. L’auteur cherche à délimiter l’étendue descriptive, interprétative et normative de l’article 27 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Il est influencé par les approches de l’innovation constitutionnelle mises de l’avant par les théories de l’expérimentalisme démocratique.Dans la première partie de l’article, l’auteur traite du cadre textuel et normatif de la disposition de la Charte sur le multiculturalisme. L’article 27 crée deux types d’intérêts distincts qui donnent lieu à des revendications : un intérêt individuel et un intérêt collectif, désignés respectivement par les termes «accommodation» et «autonomie».Dans la seconde partie, l’auteur applique le cadre normatif à deux études de cas : la coupe génitale féminine et les tribunaux de la charia. Ces exemples offrent un cadre d’analyse pour étudier la possibilité d’utiliser l’article 27 dans le but d’aborder les revendications culturelles en allant au-delà des approches doctrinales et normatives conventionnelles. L’auteur suggère qu’une interprétation expérimentaliste du multiculturalisme créerait un espace au sein duquel des approches et arrangements institutionnels divers pourraient être essayés afin de déterminer les meilleures pratiques. Au lieu de limiter les possibilités en adoptant des mesures restrictives qui mettent fin aux revendications culturelles et risquent de radicaliser certains groupes, l’auteur soutient que la force normative de l’article 27 inclut l’impératif de créer des conditions institutionnelles propices à l’essai et au test de pratiques, avec l’idée que des standards émergeront de la pratique

An analysis of the impact on the quality of life of mothers who have a child with a cleft lip and palate

A descriptive study was undertaken on mothers who have children with non-syndromic cleft lip and palate. It involved 42 mothers from one public and one private hospital in Johannesburg during the period starting January 2009 and finishing in December 2009. A self-administered questionnaire was used to determine the Impact on the Quality of Life exerted by these children on their mother’s lives. The majority of the mothers in the study are African or White, comprising 11 African, 17 White, seven Indian and four Coloured mothers. Thirty-five (35) were married, one was single, and five chose not to respond. Twenty-one (21) of the mothers interviewed had high school education and 19 tertiary education. Thirty-one (31) were employed; seven unemployed and two gave no response. Sixty-five percent (65%) of the children are male and 35% are female of whom 48.8% were diagnosed prenatally and 51.2% postnatally. Only forty-seven percent (47%) of participants received adequate counselling during prenatal and postnatal care while 53% did not. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of the women in the study said they would attend prenatal care for their subsequent children. Impact on Family Scale This study examined the difference in quality of life for the family after the birth of the affected child as compared to before the birth assuming that parents lived a near normal life before the birth of their child. It can be seen that the majority of the women identified the following five items: being overtired and exhausted; managing to cope with the condition; family becoming closer as a result of the illness; partners analysing problems together; and treating the child as normally as possible as affecting their quality of life. There is no significant difference in most of the items across the four races. That is, African, White, Indian and Coloured mothers assessed the items similarly, except when considering the question of additional income being required to cover medical expenses: here African and Coloured mothers found that more income was required to cover medical expenses while Indian and White mothers disagreed. When comparing the relationship between the level of education of mothers and the impact on the family there is a similar trend as regards race. There is no significant difference in the items between the two levels of education, except for the need to reduce time spent at work to care for the sick child, and travelling to hospital which both add to the mental and a physical strain. Mothers with a tertiary education found that this was not a problem; however those with a high school education found that it impacted badly on their lives. Most parents said they would have preferred an antenatal diagnosis and adequate counselling prior to the birth as well as post-delivery, and they will access this service for subsequent children. The research highlights important factors affecting parents whose children have cleft lip and palate. Among the most important of these are that a prenatal diagnosis is preferred in most cases, also that counselling—both in the prenatal and postnatal period—plays a vital part in managing the sick infant. Other important findings highlighted were that mothers with a tertiary education had lower-impact scores than mothers with a high school education; also that families found themselves drawn together and helping one another manage circumstances better

Adagio

English and American Literature and Languag

R v. NS: What\u27s Fair in a Trial? The Supreme Court of Canada\u27s Divided Decision on the Niqab in the Courtroom

In 2008, a woman entered an Ontario courtroom to give evidence at a preliminary inquiry involving childhood sexual assault charges against her uncle and cousin. She sought to testify while wearing a niqab, a garment that conceals the entire head and face, leaving only an opening for the eyes. The court was asked to decide the novel question whether it could accommodate the Muslim veil in a system of justice that provided the accused with a right to face his accuser. The Supreme Court of Canada divided three ways, with justices disagreeing deeply both about the analysis for determining whether to permit a witness to wear the niqab, and the values and interests at play in this analysis

Stewart v. Elk Valley: The Case of the Cocaine-Using Coal Miner

It has for some time been settled under section 15 of the Charter and within anti-discrimination code definitions that disability includes addictions . Labour boards and human rights tribunals have long accepted that alcohol and drug addiction are illnesses and are physical and mental disabilities for the purposes of the Human Rights Code. There are no reasons to consider them any less an illness or disability than any other serious affliction. \u27 The shift in expert consensus led to notable changes to the key American diagnostic instrument, the DSM 5, adopted in 2013 with a completely revised approach to addictions. What is significant for the purposes of disability law is that addiction, including both substance and behavioural addictions (e.g. gambling), is now broadly accepted as a mental illness

Relativistic field equations from higher-order polarizations of the Poincar\'e group

The theory of free relativistic fields is shown to arise in a unified manner from higher-order, configuration-space, irreducible representations of the Poincar\'e group. A de Sitter subalgebra, in the massive case, and a Poincar\'e subalgebra, in the massless case, of the enveloping algebra of the Poincar\'e group are the suitable higher-order polarizations. In particular, a simple group-theoretic derivation of the Dirac equation is given.Comment: The paper has been reordered. LaTeX file, 15 pp. To appear in Rep. Math. Phy