Talk:Supreme Court of Canada

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Please note that Crown copyright in Canada is not the same as US government copyright which generally allows people to copy government documents without permission. I noticed that some of the material seemed to be pasted from the Canadian government web site. I've tried to rewrite it so that it is not a direct quote.Alex756 00:01 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

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Removed line about "thus the Canadian system is different from that of the United States". The Canadian court system is different from that of the United States, but that sentence was right after a line that said that provincial courts had general jurisdiction while federal courts had limited jurisdiction. In this respect, the US and Canada are the same. That sentence needed to go elsewhere. Roadrunner 09:04, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Roadrunner, I'm not sure what you're saying here. You're probably correct but perhaps your input needs clarification. In Canada, federal courts do have limited jurisdiction, with the exception of the Supreme Court, which has appellate jurisdiction over ALL matters (provincial and federal). This is somewhat different from the American system, where their Supreme Court does not enjoy full appelate juristiction over some state matters. For example, in criminal law cases, which is state law in the U.S., the final court of appeal (absent constitutional issues) is the appellate court of the state in question.Loomis51 21:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Except that a true "provincial court" has no inherent jurisdiction whatsoever. The superior courts of each province (the *only* courts in Canada with inherent jurisdiction) - so-called section 96 courts - are populated with federally-appointed judges.

Contents 1 Appointment of Judges 2 CPAC appeal 3 Amicus 4 Precedent 5 Clean lead-in 6 Political patterns section 7 Selection of judges from Quebec

[edit] Appointment of Judges

To avoid have to continue to go back and forth on the issue of who appoints judges, I offer the following bit of evidence: "The Supreme Court consists of the Chief Justice of Canada and eight puisne Judges appointed by the Governor in Council from among superior court judges or from among barristers of at least ten years' standing at the Bar of a province or territory." Source: www.scc-csc.gc.ca/faq/faq/index_e.asp#f12. "Governor-in-Council" means the governor general on advice from the cabinet. HistoryBA 15:35, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you read any newspaper in the country or pay any attention to the political dialouge of Canada, it is clear that the Prime Minister of Canada makes the decision over who is appointed to the Surpreme Court. "Formally" it may be the cabinet, but the 40-some odd members of the cabinet do not in practice have any influence in who gets chosen. It's the Prime Minister's decision, and to suggest otherwise is pointlessly mis-leading about something that should be very clear. user:J.J.

I'm going to have to side with HistoryBA on this one. The fact that the Prime Minister often has the last say is a matter of party politics, not Canadian law. To say that the prime minister appoints judges has no basis in law. The fact of the matter is he as no enforceable right to make appointments and it would be misleading to suggest otherwise. --PullUpYourSocks 02:30, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree, officially judges are appointed by the Governor in Council I believe. The Prime Minister isn't even in the constitution. -- Spinboy 02:39, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

First, I have to object to J.J.'s snide opening comment, "If you read any newspaper in the country or pay any attention to the political dialouge of Canada, it is clear that the Prime Minister of Canada makes the decision over who is appointed to the Surpreme Court." I do read newspapers and follow the political dialogue. But newspapers are not always right. The Cabinet -- or at least certain cabinet ministers -- do exert some influence over the appointments. The prime minister appoints senior ministers in each province, largely to get their advice on organizational and patronage issues. He does not operate in a political vacuum. HistoryBA 22:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Then at least I'm going to write "The Governor General appoints the judges based on the reccomendation of the Prime Minister, who is expected to act within the consultation of his cabinet." To blatantly eliminate any mention of the Prime Minister in the opening sentence is rather deceptive in my mind, it paints a picture of a Canadian political system we may wish exists, rather than the one that actually does. Nevermind what the constitution says, the Canadian constitution contains huge amounts of language that reveals very little about the day-to-day reality of how the government operates. We may as well start the article on the Prime Minister of Canada by saying "there is no Prime Minister of Canada" since according to the constitution, there isn't. user:J.J.

Can anyone provide a verifiable source for the following statement? "Under Canadian law, the Governor General appoints all justices of the Supreme Court of Canada on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. This is in accordance with an Order in Council dating to 1936, which delegated the Cabinet's jurisdiction to the Prime Minister." HistoryBA 00:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. The plain fact is that for all practical purposes, the PM and the Justice Minister appoint Supreme Court judges. Of course the written letter of the Constitution leaves this power to the Governor General. But to imply that the Governor General has any real input is to misunderstand the Parliamentary system as it has evolved in Canada and the U.K.

If one were to read the Canadian Constitution literally, one would get the impression that the Governor General is some all-powerful figure that has the power to not only appoint Supreme Court Justices, but pass any law as she sees fit. This would be similar to the notion that the Queen of England could order: "Off with his head!" and her orders would be dutifully obeyed. This is clearly not the case. It would take paragraphs to explain why this is so. If prompted, I'd be pleased to elaborate.Loomis51 22:14, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be a reasonable (and more accurate) compromise from the point-of-view of all parties involved if we were to use the following:

Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada are appointed by the Governor-in-Council — that is, the Governor General makes appointments based on the advice of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada. By tradition and convention, only the Cabinet advises the Governor General (as opposed to the entire Privy Council — technically speaking, the Cabinet is only a standing committee in the larger council), and this advice is usually expressed to the Queen's representative exclusively through a consultation with the Prime Minister.

I hope that this suggestion would perhaps be seen as a reasonable, and accurate, alternative. :) FiveParadox 07:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CPAC appeal

Can somebody explain why there's a Canadian Politics sidebar on the Court page? Or move it to Government of Canada, or Prime Ministers, or someplace? Trekphiler 20:31, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Amicus

I'm not sure where to put these. First, as I understand it, SCoC is subject to Parliament in a way SCotUS isn't, since SCoC was created by Parliament, not by Constitution. Second, SCoC is rare (unique?) among hi courts in allowing cameras. (Proceedings are recorded for rebroadcast by CPAC, our equivalent of C-SPAN.) Trekphiler 20:53, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

While it's true that the SCC was created by an Act of Parliament, I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is subject to the federal government. The Court is undoubtedly protected by both the constitutional principle of the "Rule of Law" and by constitutional convention. --PullUpYourSocks 22:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Precedent

Should we not have at least a mention of precedents being set for lower courts, and whether or not the Supreme Court must follow it's own precedents?

There is a description of precendent in the Canadian legal system article, but perhaps a passing mention is in order.PullUpYourSocks 02:06, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean lead-in

I cleaned up the lead in a bit. There was too much minor information in the first few lines, that they had to get shifted down. In particular I removed:

"When handling Quebec civil law cases the court is careful to have them reviewed by the three civil law judges that are always on the court, although judges from the common law provinces have written judgments in Quebec cases, and judges from Quebec often write judgment in cases from the common law provinces."

I can't find a place to put it in and it definitely does not belong in the article lead-in. --PullUpYourSocks 02:40, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Political patterns section

This section seems rather slanted against the Chretien government, and doesn't make sense if you look at the composition of the Court. Traditionally, there are three Quebec judges (mandated because of Quebec's civil law), three Ontarians, two Westerners, and one Maritimer (and the Maritime seat does not alternate back and forth between NB and NS exclusively, because Louis Henry Davies of PEI was once Chief Justice).

The section mentions the appointments of Louis LeBel, Louise Arbour, Morris Fish, and Marie Deschamps as defying regional balance. How? LeBel, Fish and Deschamps were appointed to fill the Quebec seats, as they were the ones vacant, and Arbour, although born in Montreal, had strong roots in Ontario (including teaching at York University and sitting on an Ontario Court of Appeal), and filled one of the Ontario seats (in turn filled by either Abella or Charron when she left). Look at the current court: 3 Quebeckers (Fish, Deschamps, LeBel), three Ontarians (Binnie, Abella, Charron), one Maritimer (Bastarche), one Westerner (McLachlin), and the vacant seat about to be filled by a Westerner (Rothstein).

The part about the Martin appointments is also unclear. It says they had similar opinions on SSM, and then goes off about marijuana possession, sexual harassment, and family court, making no connections between any of this. CaptainCanada 21:42, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Funny. I never took a good look at that section. You're right there are certainly problems with it. Most obviously, it makes several major claims of the composition of the court without a single cite. I'm especially suspicious of the part citicizing Abella and Charron for their "controversial" views on the definition of marriage. Legally speaking, there is nothing radical about reading in same-sex couples into the defintion of marriage. Six Courts of Appeal all found that it included same sex couples, so I'd hardly call such views as abnormal. Honestly, without any substantial evidence of any of the claims, I think the whole section should go. --PullUpYourSocks

[edit] Selection of judges from Quebec

I've read consistently in the newspapers that the requirement of having three judges from Quebec on the Court is a convention and not mandated by legislation or the constitution. The reference used just points to the Wikipedia article for the Supreme Court Act and not the Act itself. Please verify that such a provision actually occurs in the Act.

Gregory Csikos (gregory DOT csikos AT mail DOT mcgill DOT ca), 23 November 2006

Answered my own question -- it is indeed mentioned in the statute. I changed the reference to the statute itself rather than the article about it.

Gregory Csikos, 23 November 2006