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Full-Text Articles in Law
Strategic Behaviour And Leadership Patterns Of Modern Chief Justices, C. L. Ostberg, Matthew E. Wetstein
Strategic Behaviour And Leadership Patterns Of Modern Chief Justices, C. L. Ostberg, Matthew E. Wetstein
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
This study uses strategic behaviour, leadership change, and feminist theories to examine patterns of judicial activity by the three post-Charter chief justices of the Supreme Court of Canada. Building on prior scholarship, we use various methods to examine patterns of majority voting, dissenting activity, opinion writing, ideological voting, and panel size across the 1973 to 2014 period. While Chief Justices Lamer and Dickson exhibited clear patterns of task leadership, we find strong evidence of strategic change by Chief Justice McLachlin following her elevation to chief. She moved from a prolific dissenter as a puisne justice to a chief who exhibited …
Proportionality, Discretion, And The Roles Of Judges And Prosecutors At Sentencing, Palma Paciocco
Proportionality, Discretion, And The Roles Of Judges And Prosecutors At Sentencing, Palma Paciocco
Articles & Book Chapters
The Supreme Court of Canada recently held that prosecutors are not constitutionally obligated to consider the principle of proportionality when exercising their discretion in a manner that narrows the range of available sentences: since only judges are responsible for sentencing, they alone are constitutionally required to ensure proportionality. When mandatory minimum sentences apply, however, judges have limited sentencing discretion and may be unable to achieve proportionality. If the Court takes the principle of proportionality seriously, and if it insists that only judges are constitutionally bound to enforce that principle, it must therefore create new tools whereby judges can avoid imposing …
Does A Judge's Party Of Appointment Or Gender Matter To Case Outcomes?: An Empirical Study Of The Court Of Appeal For Ontario, James Stribopoulos, Moin A. Yahya
Does A Judge's Party Of Appointment Or Gender Matter To Case Outcomes?: An Empirical Study Of The Court Of Appeal For Ontario, James Stribopoulos, Moin A. Yahya
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
A recent study by Cass Sunstein identified ideological differences in the votes cast by judges on the United States Courts of Appeals in certain types of cases. He found that these patterns varied depending on the ideology of an appellate judge's co-panelists. In this study, we undertake a similar examination of the busiest appellate court in Canada, the Court of Appeal for Ontario. This study collects data on the votes cast by individual judges in every reported decision between 1990 and 2003. Each case was cod6d by type, for example "criminal law," "constitutional law," or "private law." In addition, the …
Tradition, Judges, And Civil Liberties In Canada, Douglas Hay
Tradition, Judges, And Civil Liberties In Canada, Douglas Hay
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
Comments on the role of the first chief justice of Upper Canada, William Osgoode (1754-1824), on shaping the law during a period of "counter-revolutionary and anti-democratic repression throughout the British Empire." Concludes that laws were often presented as emergency legislation that nevertheless effectively became permanent, challenging civil liberties in times of political or social conflict
Ideology And Judging In The Supreme Court Of Canada, Robert Martin
Ideology And Judging In The Supreme Court Of Canada, Robert Martin
Osgoode Hall Law Journal
The purpose of this article is to advance some hypotheses about the way the Supreme Court of Canada operates as a state institution. The analysis is based on the period since 1948. The first hypothesis is that the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada belong to the dominant class in Canadian society. The second hypothesis is that they contribute to the dominance of their class primarily on the ideological plane.