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Judges

Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University

1999

Supreme Court of Canada

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

The Most Dangerous Justice: Measuring Judicial Power In The Lamer Court, 1991-97, Peter Mccormick Apr 1999

The Most Dangerous Justice: Measuring Judicial Power In The Lamer Court, 1991-97, Peter Mccormick

Dalhousie Law Journal

The Suoreme Court is an important national institution, but it is also nine individuals with differing conceptions of the law, the constitution and the judicial role. When the Court divides, which it does about half the time, some judges tend more often than others to write or to sign the reasons that constitute the decision of the Court. This article explores the notion of "judiciapl ower" by looking at the way that judges have written opinions and signed on to the opinions of others for the first seven years of this decade, looking for the "most powerful" (melodramatically: the "most …


Redressing The Imbalances: Rethinking The Judicial Role After R. V R.D.S., Dianne Pothier, Richard Devlin Jan 1999

Redressing The Imbalances: Rethinking The Judicial Role After R. V R.D.S., Dianne Pothier, Richard Devlin

Dianne Pothier Collection

The Decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. R.D.S. dealt with whether a trial judge's comments, about interactions between police officers and "non-white groups", gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias in the circumstances. They strongly criticize the contrary ruling of the dissent as inappropriately drawing a false dichotomy between decisions based on evidence and decisions based on generalizations, and as improperly ignoring social context with an unwarranted confidence in the ideology of colour blindness. While more supportive of the majority's analysis, the authors also find cause for concern, with somewhat different emphasis in the nature …