John Michael McGrath: Was genau bedeutet die Entscheidung des Gerichtsbike-Lane des Gerichts?
https://www.tvo.org/article/analysis-what-exactly-does-the-courts-bike-lane-decision-mean
John Michael McGrath: Was genau bedeutet die Entscheidung des Gerichtsbike-Lane des Gerichts?
https://www.tvo.org/article/analysis-what-exactly-does-the-courts-bike-lane-decision-mean
3 Kommentare
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Again, arguments like this (‚*this doesn’t set a broader precedent because the evidence was so lopsided in this case*‘) miss the fact that this case wasn’t just decided on arbitrariness grounds, it was also decided on gross disproportionality. The Court ruled that even if the objective was taken at face value (i.e there was actual evidence showing congestion would be improved), the law would still be unconstitutional, because any increased risk of accidents for this purpose was not acceptable to the Court.
>The legislation also imposes a high and grossly disproportionate cost on section 7 rights holders. The negative effects of the impugned provision – injuries and death that will result from the restoration of a lane of motor vehicle traffic and the removal of the protected bike lanes – are completely out of sync with the aim of reducing traffic congestion, **even with this objective taken at face value.**
Contrary to what the author and others are comforting themselves with, this is not a narrow case and its implications are quite broad. The one thing the author is right about is that there is a very real possibility this gets overturned by the Court of Appeal. I’m glad Ford is not invoking the notwithstanding clause (so far, fingers crossed) and letting this play out in the legal system. Aside from the dangerousness of the NWC, everyone has an interest in letting appeals courts weight in on cases like this.
I do wonder how much cases like this erode the trust and faith people have in the charter.
I get a lot of people are happy with the outcome because they opposed the policy, but using the charter to pursue a policy agenda is only going to turn off people who don’t share that agenda. They voted for a government to pursue a different agenda and now the government can’t do that. Rightfully, they may feel disenfranchised.
I know the article concludes that the Ford government only has themselves to blame by not doing the „bare minimum“… But do they? The expert consultants came back and said it wasn’t a good idea. Is there a way for the Ford government to pursue the policy after that? Did they really lose because they were „sloppy“ or because they were wrong according to the experts?
What this tells me is that parliament doesn’t really get to make decisions here. They get to recommend decisions to to experts in the field who will then evaluate and approve/deny them based on their own evidentiary standards. If they fail to do that the decision will be overturned by the court.
I get that people like the idea of „listening to experts“ but we shouldn’t pretend they are apolitical arbiters of truth. They are communities with their own social/political values and actively evolving evidentiary standards. So the Ford government dislikes bike lanes, but the urban planning community really likes bike lanes (for now), so the Ford government is unlikely to have an anti-bike lane policy approved by an expert consultant. So they don’t really have the ability to pursue a policy they were elected on.
We might see this tested again when a city submits to change a road to remove a car lane and add bike lanes. They will surely do so with a study from an expert saying it will be safer and faster ect. Would denying that approval now trigger S.7?
This feels wrong. It might not be legally wrong, I’m not an expert and do not know, but it feels wrong.