Article Review

Second writing assignment
This first assignment is a short essay. It is due by 4:30 pm on Tuesday, November 30th. Please
submit the assignment electronically by this deadline via the link available on our Brightspace
course webpage.
The essay should provide a brief summary and analysis of a legal case. The case in question is
Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration), [1999] 2 Supreme Court Reports
817. A copy of this case is available in the !Second Writing Assignment” folder on our Brightspace course webpage.
1. Please be sure to write in formal prose, with complete sentences and structured paragraphs.
2. The assignment should be approximately 750 words, or three double-spaced pages in length.
Please try to avoid going under 700 or above 800 words.
3. The assignment will be graded for clarity, spelling, grammar, and punctuation, in addition to
its substantive content. Please proof-read and “spell-check” your assignment before submitting
it.
4. No footnotes are expected on this assignment. However, if you quote (very briefly) from the
case, you should put the passage in quotation marks and provide the paragraph number(s) in
parentheses.
5. Please include a cover page for your assignment. This page should include your name and student number. You do not need an original title for the assignment (you can call it !Second Writing Assignment”).
What are you trying to achieve with the assignment?
When preparing the assignment, please focus on the following questions. You will be graded on
the basis of your ability to answer these questions. Your assignment should be written in such a
way that it answers each of these questions. Do not write the assignment simply as a series of
point-form answers to these questions. Instead, write the assignment in with these questions in
mind, so that you structure the assignment with a view to providing your reader with answers to
them.
1. Facts: What are the facts of the case? That is, what is the factual background of the dispute
that generated the legal proceedings?
2. Issues: What are the core legal issues in the case? What is at stake legally in the case?
3. Decision: How does the Supreme Court of Canada decide the case? Who “wins” and who
“loses”?
4. Reasoning: How does the court justify its decision? Why, in other words, does the court arrive
at the decision that it does? What is the argument the court provides in support of its decision?
5. Principle: What is the case’s bottom-line legal takeaway? Why does the case matter, and what
general principle, if any, does it stand for?