ABSTRACT
This article addresses important, neglected questions of legal craft in relation to rights challenges to legislation, especially equality claims. It considers the perspective from which to assess multiple parts of a complex scheme in a challenge under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Is the challenge best framed against the scheme as a whole – all or nothing – or against the separate parts? The framing or perspective can have serious implications for the outcome. Furthermore, a private litigant, motivated by self-interest in her individual circumstances, may frame the challenge in a way that does not advance a larger group’s interests or even harms them. To study these matters, the article focuses on Quebec (Attorney General) v A, which upheld the exclusion of unmarried couples from provincial marriage law. Adding to the existing concerns about the prominence of corporate litigants and the class biases of judges, that appeal exemplifies another type of rights case in which money talks.
