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Law Emigration & Immigration

Calling Power to Account

Law, Reparations, and the Chinese Canadian Head tax

edited by David Dyzenhaus & Mayo Moran

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Oct 2005
Category
Emigration & Immigration, Legal History
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802038722
    Publish Date
    Oct 2005
    List Price
    $117.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802038081
    Publish Date
    Oct 2005
    List Price
    $69.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442671669
    Publish Date
    Sep 2005
    List Price
    $118.00

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Description

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.

About the authors

David Dyzenhaus is a professor in the Faculty of Law and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto.

David Dyzenhaus' profile page

Mayo Moran is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto.

Mayo Moran's profile page