This text presents a comparative, international study of commissions of inquiry that have been convened in response to extraordinary failures and scandals. In recent years, commissions of inquiry have been common to the politics of the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia. Recent years have seen a much wider range of states establish commissions of inquiry into intelligence and security issues, and they have also played important roles in transitions in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Commissions of inquiry are no longer even the exclusive preserve of states, as transnational institutions such as the United Nations and European Union have begun to convoke them. This groundbreaking book comprehensively examines commissions of inquiry around the world, which have become important and increasingly invoked tools to discover truth, curb abuses, and reconcile national security imperatives with the constraints of law and human rights. It offers timely insights for national security analysts, government officials, diplomats, lawyers, scholars, human rights monitors, students, and citizens.

This study of the Manitoba judiciary is not only the first biographical history to examine an entire provincial bench, it is also one of the first studies to offer an internal view of the political nature of the judicial appointment process. Dale Brawn has penned the biographies of the first thirty-three men appointed to Manitoba's Court of Queen's Bench. The relative youth of Manitoba as a province and the small size of its legal profession makes possible an exceptionally detailed investigation of the background of those appointed to the province's highest trial court. The biographical data that Brawn has collected for this book highlights the extent to which judicial candidates underwent a socialization process designed to produce a legal elite whose members shared remarkably similar views and ways of thinking. In addition, these biographies suggest that until at least 1950, seats on provincial benches were rewards for political services rendered. Many lawyers became judges not because of their legal ability, but because they had made themselves known in the communities in which they practiced. This fascinating study offers an intimate look at personalities ranging from prime ministers to members of the bench and both senior levels of government.

Using the judiciary of Manitoba as a model, Paths to the Bench examines the political nature of Canada's judicial appointment process and suggests that ability alone seldom determined who went to the bench. In fact, many of Manitoba's early judges spent little time actually practising law, since professional merit was not a criterion for judicial appointments. Rather, it was relationships with influential mentors and communities that ensured appointments and ultimately propelled careers. Brawn offers an in-depth analysis of how the paths to the bench of competent and connected and less competent and connected lawyers differed. This book is one of the few studies to examine why many of the best and brightest members of the bar either did not want to go to the bench, or if they did, why they did not get there.

Dorothy Smith is considered one of the most original sociologists and theorists of our time, and her writings have attracted much attention in Europe and the US as well as in Canada. This collection of original essays, written by scholars who worked or studied with Smith, exemplifies Smith's approach to social analysis. Each author takes an empirical approach. Some analyse texts (the maps and documents of land-use planning, photographs, an influential history of British India, reports of a task force on battered women); some draw on interviews (with clerical workers, with Japanese corporate wives), while others (an AIDS activist, a teacher of adult literacy, a social worker) reflect on personal experiences. In each case we are introduced to specific themes in Smith's approach. The essays put Smith's method to work in diverse ways and in the process offer intriguing insights into their topics. This tribute to Smith's empowering contribution as a thinker and teacher reveals how empirical studies can illuminate concepts usually presented in the abstract. As the first compilation of applications of Smith's methodology, this is a landmark work in the developing field of the social organization of knowledge.

In the first systematic study of the subject, Daniel Bourgeois traces the complex path that led to the demise of the plan in 1976, following pressure from the Treasury Board Secretariat. Canadian Bilingual Districts also considers the Royal Commission's approach in the context of contemporary developments. Bourgeois argues for the reconsideration of this discarded "cornerstone" of federal language policy, providing a nuanced analysis of social identity, sociolinguistic policies, nationalism, and minority rights and services.

The Manitoba Law Journal (MLJ) is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 1961. The MLJ's current mission is to provide lively, independent and high caliber commentary on legal events in Manitoba or events of special interest to our community. The MLJ aims to bring diverse and multidisciplinary perspectives to the issues it studies, drawing on authors from Manitoba, Canada and beyond. Its studies are intended to contribute to understanding and reform not only in our community, but around the world. This issue has articles from a variety of contributing authors including: Justice Gerald Jewers, Stefanie Goldberg, Colin Jackson, Andrew Flavelle Martin, Tom Mitchell, Nick Noonan, Bryan P. Schwartz, and Darcy L. MacPherson.