Calling power to account : law, reparations and the Chinese Canadian head tax case

__Calling Power to Account__ suggests that our legal systems can hope to play a part in responding to their own legacy of past injustice only when they recognize the full array of issues posed by the Head Tax Case. Contents 7 Preface and Acknowledgments 11 Contributors 13 Context and History 19 Mack v. Attorney General of Canada: Equality, History, and Reparation 19 Litigating Injustice 36 Legal Discrimination against the Chinese in Canada: The Historical Framework 40 Can We Do Wrong to Strangers? 76 The Head Tax Case and the Rule of Law: The Historical Thread of Judicial Resistance to 'Legalized' Discrimination 108 Limits on Institutional Capacity to Address Injustice 131 The Limits of Constitutionalism: Requiring Moral Behaviour from Government 131 Delivering the Goods and the Good: Repairing Moral Wrongs 163 Rights and Wrongs, Institutions and Time: Species of Historic Injustice and Their Modes of Redress 181 Redress for Unjust State Action: An Equitable Approach to the Public/Private Distinction 212 Legal Theory and Gross Statutory Injustice 249 Gross Statutory Injustice and the Canadian Head Tax Case 249 The Juristic Force of Injustice 272 Private Right and Public Wrong 303 The Timing of Injustice 303 Mack v. Attorney General of Canada and the Structure of the Action in Unjust Enrichment 323 A Brief History of Mass Restitution Litigation in the United States 357 Time, Place, and Values: Mack and the Influence of the Charter on Private Law 394 Appendix I: Appellants' Factum 429 Appendix II: Mack v. Attorney General of Canada: Judgment of the Ontario Court of Appeal 466 Index 485

Courts today face a range of claims to redress historic injustice, including injustice perpetrated by law. In Canada, descendants of Chinese immigrants recently claimed the return of a head tax levied only on Chinese immigrants. Calling Power to Account uses the litigation around the Chinese Canadian Head Tax Case as a focal point for examining the historical, legal, and philosophical issues raised by such claims.

By placing both the discriminatory law and the judicial decisions in their historical context, some of the essays in this volume illuminate the larger patterns of discrimination and the sometimes surprising capacity of the courts of the day to respond to racism. A number of the contributors explore the implications of reparations claims for relations between the various branches of government while others examine the difficult questions such claims raise in both legal and political theory by placing the claims in a comparative or philosophical perspective.

Calling Power to Account suggests that our legal systems can hope to play a part in responding to their own legacy of past injustice only when they recognize the full array of issues posed by the Head Tax Case.

"Courts today face a range of claims to redress historic injustice, including injustice perpetuated by law. In Canada, descendants of Chinese immigrants recently claimed the return of a head tax levied only on Chinese immigrants. Calling Power to Account uses the litigation around the Chinese Canadian head tax as a focal point for examining the historical, legal, and philosophical issues raised by such claims." "Calling Power to Account suggest that our legal systems can hope to play a part in responding to their own legacy of past injustice only when they recognize the full array of issues posed by the head tax case."--Résumé de l'éditeur "Courts today face a range of claims to redress historic injustice, including injustice perpetuated by law. In Canada, descendants of Chinese immigrants recently claimed the return of a head tax levied only on Chinese immigrants. Calling Power to Account uses the litigation around the Chinese Canadian head tax as a focal point for examining the historical, legal, and philosophical issues raised by such claims." "Calling Power to Account suggest that our legal systems can hope to play a part in responding to their own legacy of past injustice only when they recognize the full array of issues posed by the head tax case."--BOOK JACKET