minority rights — Online Journal — Columbia Undergraduate Law Review

Quebec’s Bill 21: When Provincial Autonomy Threatens Minority Rights

On June 16, 2019, the National Assembly of Quebec passed Bill 21, The Act Respecting the Laicity of the State, as a declaration of Quebec’s “particular attachment to State laicity” and an affirmation that “the state is a lay state”. The passing of Bill 21 and the proceedings of Hak v. Procureure générale du Québec (2019) urge Canadians to consider the consequences of Quebec’s provincial autonomy and, ultimately, demonstrate the need for constitutional amendments to protect vulnerable minority groups against provincial legislature.

Stephanie ChanJuly 5, 2021Canada, Quebec, Bill 21, minority rights, provincial autonomy

Shelby County v. Holder: Implications of a Weakened Voting Rights Act

African Americans’ right to vote under the Fifteenth Amendment was reaffirmed with the establishment of the far-reaching Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, which banned onerous literacy tests and other restrictive measures that were a noticeable facet of the Jim Crow era.[1] In particular, Section 4 of the VRA prevents areas where “less than 50 percentum of the persons of voting age residing therein” were registered by or voted in the 1964 election from restricting or denying individuals the right to vote.[2] This was done in order to deter “the purpose ... of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color.”[3]

Abhishek HariharanSeptember 5, 2018Shelby County v. Holder, Voting Rights Act, voting rights, minority rights, North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP v. McCrory, voter ID laws, voter fraud, Justice Ginsberg, Justice Roberts, Fifteenth Amendment Comment