Leonid Sirota
Legal academic; mostly Canadian and comparative public law. Associate Professor @unirdg-law.bsky.social; Senior Fellow, Macdonald Laurier Institute; blogger, doubleaspect.blog
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- Reposted by Leonid SirotaMy annual post on why May Day should be Victims of Communism Day: reason.com/volokh/2025/...
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaReckons ...
- This is what the Elections Canada results page looks like at the moment. I do not think they should be highlighting a "winner", let alone a "winner" who falls short of a majority. This is a judgment for Parliament, not for the people counting the votes.
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaBut in BOTH types of systems, certain parties are exercise OUTSIZED power. A party that wins 15% of the seats but joins a governing coalition with one that won 40% of the seats is arguably exercising a more DISproportionate amount of power than a party governing with 42% of the national vote share.
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaMoreover, if the 'wasted' vote idea hinges on representation, and in MMP or other PR-type systems there are representatives elected who NO ONE directly voted for, there is every bit the normative objection at stake. But MY point is the objection is always silly, regardless.
- Your periodic reminder that there is no duty to vote: macdonaldlaurier.ca/prioritizing.... Don't reward people who haven't earned it.
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- Why would anyone compare two populist blowhards with a three-year-old's understanding of economics, fondness for foreign dictators, and hatred towards minorities? It's a mystery!
- As often, a mix of interesting constitutional law observations and rather puzzling claims (the comparison between Trump and Corbyn) by @doubleaspect.blog
- ICYMI: The UK shed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss with comparative ease, which the US seems unable to do to Donald Trump. Does that mean the British constitution is better than its American counterpart? doubleaspect.blog/2025/04/22/w...
- New post by @markpmancini.bsky.social on the importance of procedure and legal orderliness. doubleaspect.blog/2025/04/22/f...
- New post: a response to @lordnortonlouth.bsky.social's discusson of the constitutional differences between the UK and the US and their role in countering obnoxious leadership.
- The anecdotes will differ, but the underlying message is one that Canadians need to take onboard, especially if the Liberal government wins re-election.
- From the two-things-can-be-true-at-once series: 1) The SCC's decison striking down the law allowing for effectively no-parole life sentences was rubbish (see: doubleaspect.blog/2022/06/08/u...); 2) The notwithstanding clause should *never* be used (see e.g. doubleaspect.blog/2017/05/10/c...).
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- Reposted by Leonid SirotaThere’s a lot to be said for precedented times
- Reposted by Leonid Sirota"they hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak" our beef:
- New post: welcoming a new a crop of legal/connstitutional blogs, in Canada and elsewhere. (With shoutouts notably to @plagasse.bsky.social, @vanessamacdonnell.bsky.social, @emmettmacfarlane.com, and @mathieucarpentier.bsky.social!)
- New post: on the reasons for having due process, including for law-breakers.
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaNot an original thought, but if you ever wondered if procedural due process is a sort of hollow right, we have now been instructed fully why it exists and people care about it. The Government is just scooping up basically random people and putting them in foreign prisons.
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaSalus facetiae suprema lex esto !
- Summum bonum est!
- I'm delighted that my new article "In Praise of Common Good Constitutionalism: the Case for the Vermeulean Executive" has now been published in the Annals of the Academia Aquinensis of Budapest. Full text available here: tinyurl.com/2ean3xwn
- Please don't crucify me for my typos. Can we have due process (i.e. an edit function) please?
- As I have written (doubleaspect.blog/2025/03/24/v...) this is Gaius Verres crucifyinig Roman citizens. But Verres had the decency (or at least self-interest) to run away when exposed. His spiritual heirs just tell the praetor and sneer. As Cicero said on another occasion, O tempora! O mores! 1/2
- As I have written (doubleaspect.blog/2025/03/24/v...) this is Gaius Verres crucifyinig Roman citizens. But Verres had the decency (or at least self-interest) to run away when exposed. His spiritual heirs just tell the praetor and sneer. As Cicero said on another occasion, O tempora! O mores! 1/2
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaIn his suave deprecation of due process as a value, “Professor Vermeule is not speaking in the abstract. He is, in his motte-and-bailey, I’m-not-saying-it-but-I’m-also-not-not-saying-it fashion, making a point about current events.” [Leonid Sirota @doubleaspect.blog]
- AUT is where I used to work. Professor Quince was, briefly, my dean. I am lucky not to be there anymore, and sorry for anyone trying to do good work under this sort of "leadership".
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- The grotesque Henry VIII powers the BC government tried to grab under the guise of fighting back against Donald Trump are withdrawn... for now at least. ICYMI, here's what @markpmancini.bsky.social and I wrote about it: nationalpost.com/opinion/opin...
- More clarification on Bill 7: - Part 4 is being severed from the bill - The rest of Bill 7 will proceed - Another bill with modified powers outlined in Part 4 will eventually be introduced "It's unlikely that we'll be able to introduce anything before the end of the session," Eby says #bcpoli
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- ICYMI: Cicero understood the importance of procedural safeguards; the people who claim to be the heirs to the classical natural law tradition today are content to make specious excuses for their destruction.
- New post: of course due process isn't an end in itself, but purporting to call attention to this in order in order to condone lawlessness is something that legal classics warned us against.
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaHerewith a primer on the rules of government formation in Canada: journals.library.ualberta.ca/constitution...
- Apropos of, oh nothing I guess, your periodic reminder that you don't have to vote. I'm not quite calling for abstention (though most people would in fact do everyone a favour by abstaining), but I do want to encourage you to think about whether anyone has actually deserved your vote.
- ICYMI: @markpmancini.bsky.social and I in the National Post, about British Columbia government's attempt to cut the legislature out of law-making, democracy and the Rule of Law be damned.
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaNot quite 'secret ministries' but this is scary enough
- The latest from @markpmancini.bsky.social and yours truly, in the National Post, on the preposterous Henry VIII clause in BC's just-introduced Economci Stabilization Bill. We didn't write the headline, but it sums things up nicely. The clause is an outrage against democracy and needs to go.
- This gem of a Henry VIII clause is in BC's Bill 7, the Economic Stabilization (Tariff Response) Bill (www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentar...). If enacted, this would give away all legislative power to the executive, with no meaningful scrutiny possible by either the legislature or the judiciary.
- Reposted by Leonid SirotaIt’s easy to dismiss the significance of material abundance when we have it—it’s hard to dismiss its significance when we lose it
- New post: my thoughts on the Federal Court of Canada dismissing the challenge to the prorogation of Parliament ― the right outcome, a flawed decision, but rather better than it might have been.
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- Reposted by Leonid SirotaIt's the anniversary of Stalin's death, so celebrate accordingly.
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- But of course he's putting up retaliatory tariffs. So... the Canadian government has chosen to do this to Canadians, righ? Right: doubleaspect.blog/2025/02/03/w...
- A shitty Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. My take on the petition demanding that Elon Musk be deprived of his citizenship, now in The Line.
- Isn't social media just wonderful? An anonymous clown can confidently lecture a legal academic on "the law" which he can't even name, in response to a detailed blog post that explains exactly what the relevant law says.
- The SCC is leaving the other place, but not, apparently, coming here. Are they afraid I'll keep up my snarky comments?
- ICYMI: My post on Elon Musk and the disgraceful calls to take away his Canadian citizenship. They are a legally untenable demand for political retribution. Giving way to them would be a step towards making Canada into precisely the sort of pupulist nightmare Mr. Musk's critics rightly fear.
