Postdoctoral Fellow, 2006-08

Course Instructor in Political Science, University of Toronto.

Mary Liston holds the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Law and Ethics at the Centre for Ethics. Her doctoral thesis, “Honest Counsel: Institutional Dialogue and the Canadian Rule of Law”, constructs a theoretical model of a democratic rule of law from a close reading of Canadian jurisprudence in public law, with particular focus on constitutional law and administrative law. At the core of this model is the concept of dialogue between courts and other state institutions, between different orders of government within the Canadian constitutional system, and between citizens and the state. In addition to her passion for democratic and legal theory, Liston also has an abiding interest in law and literature. Her teaching interests in contemporary political philosophy, theories of justice, and Canadian law and politics came together in her recent course on “The Rule of Law as a Political Morality” in the Department of Political Science.

Liston’s publications include: “Governments in Miniature: The Rule of Law in the Administrative State”, in Administrative Law in Context: A New Casebook (Toronto: Emond-Montgomery, forthcoming 2007/2008); “Willis, Theology, and the Rule of Law”, University of Toronto Law Journal (2005) and “Alert, Alive and Sensitive: Baker, the Duty to Give Reasons, and the Ethos of Justification in Canadian Public Law”, The Unity of Public Law (Hart Publishing, 2004).

Liston completed her doctoral work in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto, having already received an M.A. in Social and Political Thought at York University, LL.B. from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, and an Honours B.A. in English Language and Literature at the University of Western Ontario.