Emerging Constitutional Norms: Continuous Judicial Amendment of the Constitution—The Proportionality Test as a Moving Target

The so-called proportionality test of modifications to the Canadian Constitution are discussed. The Constitution is, at times, described as a moving target for change

Pluralisme juridique à Kahnawake?

L'observation et l'analyse des institutions, canadienne et traditionnelles, à Kahnawake révèle que, sur le plan formel, on se trouve en face de multiples sources de normativité, étatiques et non étatiques, qui forment un pluralisme très complexe et évolutif. Au cours des dernières années, ce pluralisme juridique réel a diminué d'intensité, notamment à travers le transfert de légitimité et d'effectivité normative entre les différents ordres juridiques en cause, tout en maintenant intactes les apparences formelles d'un pluralisme à la fois intra- et extra-étatique. La domination d'un ordre juridique sur d'autres, sinon l'effectivité et même la survivance d'un ordre juridique donné, dépendraient de trois facteurs : les ressources financières, la crédibilité externe et la légitimité interne. On constate également des ressemblances entre le droit autochtone et le nôtre. Il y a similitude entre les wampums et nos lois constitutionnelles canadiennes, également imprécis, suscitant les mêmes mécanismes d'interprétation, et le même rôle, pour l'interprète, dans la production du droit. On note aussi la similitude des limites normatives, liées à une légitimité fondée sur la correspondance entre les valeurs que les producteurs du droit y inscrivent et les valeurs dominantes dans une collectivité.The observation and analysis of Canadian and traditional institutions at Kahnawake have demonstrated that from a formal standpoint, the observer is faced with multiple sources of governmental and non-governmental normativity, which constitute a highly complex and evolutionary pluralism. In recent years, this legal pluralism has lost some of its intensity, namely through the transfer of legitimacy and normative effectivity between the various levels of legal orders involved, while still keeping intact the formal appearances of a pluralism both intra and extra state oriented. The dominance of one legal order over the others, not to mention the effectiveness and even the survival of a given legal order, seem to depend upon three factors : financial resources, external credibility and internal legitimacy. Resemblances between native legal systems and our own are to be noted. The similarity between the wampums and our Canadian constitutional acts — both lacking in precision — call upon the same techniques of interpretation, and the same role for the interpreter, in the production of norms. There is also a similarity of normative limits linked to legitimacy based upon the correspondence between the values that legal interpreters write into law and the dominant values in the community

Pluralisme juridique à Kahmawake

[À l'origine dans / Was originally part of : CRDP - Droit et nouveaux rapports sociaux

Les Représentations de «Société Libre Et Démocratique» a la Cour Dickson : La Rhétorique Dans le Discours Judiciaire Canadien

The expression free and democratic society is the focus of our research, which sheds light on the contribution of the Supreme Court to the constitutionalization of this concept. Leaving aside the institutional and psycho-social factors, the study confirms the hypothesis that the interpretation of this expression will vary (1) according to the conceptions formerly held by the individual judges and (2) with respect to the factors favoured by a rhetorical Perelman-like analysis, which considers the factual and judicial context and the expectations of both the universal and specific audiences. At the Supreme Court level, the expectations of the latter should prevail over the former. Our results reveal that in addition to these factors others come into play: a third audience consisting of the Court itself the invariable core of the judges\u27 thinking; and real circumstances which undoubtedly represent the most serious factor, proving detrimental to the legal coherence necessary to meet the expectations of the specific audience

Les Représentations de «Société Libre Et Démocratique» a la Cour Dickson : La Rhétorique Dans le Discours Judiciaire Canadien

The expression free and democratic society is the focus of our research, which sheds light on the contribution of the Supreme Court to the constitutionalization of this concept. Leaving aside the institutional and psycho-social factors, the study confirms the hypothesis that the interpretation of this expression will vary (1) according to the conceptions formerly held by the individual judges and (2) with respect to the factors favoured by a rhetorical Perelman-like analysis, which considers the factual and judicial context and the expectations of both the universal and specific audiences. At the Supreme Court level, the expectations of the latter should prevail over the former. Our results reveal that in addition to these factors others come into play: a third audience consisting of the Court itself the invariable core of the judges\u27 thinking; and real circumstances which undoubtedly represent the most serious factor, proving detrimental to the legal coherence necessary to meet the expectations of the specific audience

Efficacy and ligand bias at the μ-opioid receptor

In order to describe drug action at a GPCR, a full understanding of the pharmacological terms affinity, efficacy and potency is necessary. This is true whether comparing the ability of different agonists to produce a measurable response in a cell or tissue, or determining the relative ability of an agonist to activate a single receptor subtype and produce multiple responses. There is a great deal of interest in the μ-opioid receptor (MOP receptor) and the ligands that act at this GPCR not only because of the clinically important analgesic effects produced by MOP agonists but also because of their liability to induce adverse effects such as respiratory depression and dependence. Our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these effects, as well as the ability to develop new, more effective MOP receptor drugs, depends upon the accurate determination of the efficacy with which these ligands induce coupling of MOP receptors to downstream signalling events. In this review, which is written with the minimum of mathematical content, the basic meaning of terms including efficacy, intrinsic activity and intrinsic efficacy is discussed, along with their relevance to the field of MOP receptor pharmacology, and in particular in relation to biased agonism at this important GPCR. LINKED ARTICLES: Recent reviews on aspects of efficacy can be found at: Kenakin, T (2013). New concepts in pharmacological efficacy at 7TM receptors: IUPHAR Review 2. British Journal of Pharmacology 168: 554–575. doi: 10.1111/j.1476-5381.2012.02223.x Roche D, Gil D and Giraldo J (2013). Mechanistic analysis of the function of agonists and allosteric modulators: reconciling two-state and operational models. British Journal of Pharmacology 169: 1189–1202. doi: 10.1111/bph.1223