For those who like fine details of constitutional law, or parliamentary history minutiae, Emmett Macfarlane's Substack discussing the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Alford v. Canada might be just your cup of tea.
Alford is a law professor who thinks that a law making it a criminal offence for members of the House of Commons National Security and Intelligence committee to disclose confidential information they receive in committee is an unconstitutional intrusion on Parliament's privilege to make its own decisions about what Parliamentarian may and may not do.
The Supreme Court did not agree. It upheld the law, and Macfarlane approves. Parliamentarians' privileges, they both find, are essential but do not need to be unlimited, and can even be restrained by the criminal law of the land.
