Another Canada US difference
Feb. 22nd, 2006 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chickenfeetIt has struck me ever since I came to Canada how different the judicial systems and traditions of the USA, Canada and Britain are. Oversimplifying, the USA has a long tradition of judicial activism and, especially in recent years, has produced a highly polarised Supreme Court and quite astonishingly (to a Brit/Canadian) vicious battles over court appointments. Britain on the other hand has a fairly weak judiciary and it's pretty much exclusively recruited from impeccably small "c" conservative Establishment sources by the sort of secretive process the Brits love so much.
Canada is really very different from either. Canada's Supreme Court has, since 1982, wielded powers almost as great as the US Supreme Court and hasn't been afraid to make bold rulings in highly sensitive areas; language rights, gay marriage, healthcare guarantees and so on. Despite that it would be unfair to describe the court, or appointments to it, as politicised. This article in today's Globe and Mail is highly illustrative. Three candidates are being considered for a vacancy on the court by a newly elected and very conservative Prime Minister, yet none of them can be considered controversial. Two are highly thought of judges with no obvious political baggage and one is a distinguished legal scholar. One is even married to a former NDP provincial cabinet minister. All three would give the American right apoplectic fits.
Another interesting difference is that, should Madam Justice Hunt be appointed, the Supreme Court of Canada would have a female majority which contrasts rather sharply with the two female members of the US Supreme Court and the solitary female Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in the UK.
Canada is really very different from either. Canada's Supreme Court has, since 1982, wielded powers almost as great as the US Supreme Court and hasn't been afraid to make bold rulings in highly sensitive areas; language rights, gay marriage, healthcare guarantees and so on. Despite that it would be unfair to describe the court, or appointments to it, as politicised. This article in today's Globe and Mail is highly illustrative. Three candidates are being considered for a vacancy on the court by a newly elected and very conservative Prime Minister, yet none of them can be considered controversial. Two are highly thought of judges with no obvious political baggage and one is a distinguished legal scholar. One is even married to a former NDP provincial cabinet minister. All three would give the American right apoplectic fits.
Another interesting difference is that, should Madam Justice Hunt be appointed, the Supreme Court of Canada would have a female majority which contrasts rather sharply with the two female members of the US Supreme Court and the solitary female Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in the UK.
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Date: 2006-02-22 04:02 pm (UTC)http://www.oiprc.ox.ac.uk/TipTop.pdf
I think I like him!
Of course, these are all Irwin Cotler's nominees, not those of HarperCo. I'm honestly surprised that Harper didn't draw up his own shortlist.