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‘Alert, Alive And Sensitive’: Baker, The Duty To Give Reasons, And The Ethos Of Justification In Canadian Public Law, Mary Liston

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This chapter argues that the remarkable phrase ‘alert, alive and sensitive’ – coined by Madame Justice L’Heureux-Dubé in the major Supreme Court of Canada decision, Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) – signifies two important jurisprudential developments. First, the phrase ‘alert, alive and sensitive’ indicates a set of attributes connoting good judgment which can be used to evaluate the quality of judicial and administrative decisions. Second, the phrase comports with an emergent understanding of Canadian public law as an ‘ethos of justification’ in which citizens and non-citizens are democratically, and often constitutionally, entitled to participate in decisions made …