Nikita Tafazoli

Nikita Tafazoli is currently pursuing an MPhil in Law at the University of Oxford. She holds a BCL/JD and a BA in Political Science and Philosophy, both from McGill University. While at McGill, she completed a student clerkship at the Quebec Court of Appeal and competed in the Laskin Constitutional Law Moot. In the coming year, she will be clerking at the Ontario Court of Appeal. Alongside her studies, Nikita worked in both commercial and public-interest litigation for two years. 

Prior to joining the graduate Law Faculty at Oxford, she completed her bijural legal education at McGill, where she placed on the Dean’s Honour List and received the Faculty’s James Woods Scholarship in Civil Litigation. Upon graduation, she was awarded several fellowships for her postgraduate research, including the Daniel Jutras Travelling Fellowship for comparative law research. Her publications appear in the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review and Appeal: Review of Current Law and Law Reform (University of Victoria). These articles examine topics spanning human rights and constitutionalism, and statutory developments in artificial intelligence and data regulation. 

Nikita’s research at Oxford focuses on comparative administrative and constitutional law, under the supervision of Professor Adam Perry. Specifically, her work develops an account of unwritten constitutional principles in Canada, drawing on comparative insights from the UK. This account aims to inform how judges conduct judicial review of delegated public authority and executive action—particularly in assessing the “reasonableness” of such action and its compliance with core constitutional guarantees.

If a Prime Minister unreasonably prorogues Parliament, what role, if any, should courts play in reviewing that decision? While the UK’s answer may be relatively settled, Canadian courts are actively grappling with the question. Her thesis is timely, proposing a return to foundational constitutional principles to guide the judicial response.