Carissima Mathen of the University of Ottawa School of Law to Deliver Lecture on Court Curbing Mathen’s talk “Dilemmas of Democracy” will be held Nov. 13.

By Emily Innes
November 2, 2023

Carissima Mathen, professor of law at the University of Ottawa School of Law, will deliver a lecture titled “Dilemmas of Democracy: Curbing the Courts in the United States and Canada” at Washington and Lee University on Monday, Nov. 13 at 5:30 p.m. in Leyburn Library’s Northen Auditorium. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Center for International Education (CIE), the Office of the Provost, the Department of Politics and the Law, Justice, and Society Program.

Mathen is a noted international scholar on constitutional law and has written extensively on constitutional law, criminal law and the politics of court appointments. In her talk, she will focus on court curbing in the United States and Canada, a practice that aims to limit judicial independence and court authority. During her visit to W&L, she will also meet with students in the Law, Justice, and Society Program to discuss challenges in regulating harmful speech on social media.

“Carissima Mathen is a leading light in the study of constitutional law,” said Mark Rush, director of the CIE and the Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Professor of Politics and Law. “She is an award-winning author and critic of Canadian constitutionalism and has written extensively on contemporary issues in constitutional law around the world.”

Mathen’s recent work addresses the challenges of regulating social media and attempts by Canadian provinces to restrict the power of the judiciary. She received the Law Society Medal in 2018, one of the highest honors granted by the Ontario Bar Association, and the government of Ontario recently bestowed upon her the 2022 David W. Mundell Medal, citing her “outstanding contribution to legal writing in the field of Canadian constitutional law.”