scholarly journals The Frayed and Tarnished Silver Thread: Stinchcome and the Role of Crown Counsel in Alberta

1969 ◽  
pp. 567
Author(s):  
Glen E. Luther
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Wrongful Convictions ◽  
Full Disclosure ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Disclosure Obligations ◽  
The Web

The Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly stressed that, in their roles as Crown prosecutors, Crown counsel must act as ministers of justice in order to protect against wrongful convictions. Historically this obligation has been referred to as a silver thread woven into "the web of Canadian criminal law." Central to this quasi-judicial Crown obligation is disclosure. In this article, the author contends that the Supreme Court ideal of Crown prosecutors acting as ministers of justice and making full disclosure does not correspond with reality. Rather, it is asserted that the Crown delegates disclosure duties to the police, does not take disclosure obligations seriously, and is not held responsible by the courts for failure to disclose. The author argues that until the Supreme Court clarifies the required scope of disclosure, especially as regards Charter defences; until Crown prosecution offices are prepared and equipped to take the disclosure role seriously; and until the courts enforce this role; there will continue to be wrongful convictions due to lack of disclosure.

scholarly journals Examining the Foreseeable: Assisted Suicide as a Herald of Changing Moralities

2001 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joane Martel
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Medical Assistance ◽  
Moral Regulation ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Criminal Charges

After her intense battle for the decriminalization of assisted suicide in the Supreme Court of Canada, Sue Rodriguez committed suicide with medical assistance in 1994. Following her suicide, government and law representatives remained silent and no criminal charges were ever brought against the person(s) who presumably assisted Ms Rodriguez in her death. This apparent non-intervention of criminal law is examined in view of the useful role that the Rodriguez event may have played in a possible shift in the dominant morality. It is argued that the Rodriguez assisted suicide may have been a useful 'crime' (in the Durkheimian sense) in that it brought to the fore the possibility that social conditions - which made the 'crime' possible - may no longer be in harmony with conventional morality. Similarly to Socrates' crime, the Rodriguez case can be seen as an anticipation of a new morality. It can be analysed as a prelude to alterations, as directly preparing the way for changes in the dominant morality. The role of criminal law as a preferred mode of moral regulation is also examined in relation to the moral demands and expectations that arose during as well as after the judicial saga.

Repeat Litigators and Agenda Setting on the Supreme Court of Canada

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 811-833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy B. Flemming ◽  
Glen S. Krutz
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Judicial Review ◽  
Statistical Models ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
High Courts ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Selection Of

The expanding public policy role of high courts heightens concerns over whether societal and political inequalities affect the outcomes of litigation. However, comparative research on this question is limited. This article assesses whether status inequalities between parties and differences in the experience and resources of attorneys influence the selection of cases for judicial review in the Supreme Court of Canada. A series of statistical models reveal that governments are more likely than other parties to influence whether leave is granted but that the experience and resources of lawyers, unlike in the United States, have little impact. The decentralized, low volume and high access features of the Canadian process may explain this finding.

scholarly journals The Impact of the Supreme Court of Canada on Intergovernmental Relations

Federalism-E ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Goldlist
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Political Resources ◽  
Canadian Federalism ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication ◽  
The Impact

The role of the Supreme Court in the practice of Canadian federalism, specifically the extent of its power and the effects of that power, is a hotly contested issue in Canadian political science. While some scholars have argued that the Court has taken on too political of a role that must be restricted, this paper develops the Court as a constitutional ‘umpire,’ whose rulings serve the important, but limited, functions of allocating political resources to incentivize negotiation, and establishing jurisdictional boundaries for said negotiations, leaving specific policy decisions to political, as opposed to legal, actors. Concerning the net outcome of the Court’s jurisprudence on the distribution of legislative powers, this paper illustrates the Court’s overall balancing approach, with grants of power to one level of government met with increases in authority to the other, in all major policy areas. Thus, ultimately shown to embrace both a limited and impartial approach to constitutional adjudication, the Court has done much to enhance its democratic legitimacy and constitutional utility.

Part VI Constitutional Theory, D The Role of Constitutional Principles in Canadian Constitutional Law, Ch.47 Constitutional Principles in the Secession Reference

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leclair Jean
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Constitutional Theory ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Constitutional Changes ◽  
Political Compromises

In Reference Re Secession of Quebec, 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that the unwritten constitutional principles of federalism and democracy dictated that the clear repudiation of the existing constitutional order and the clear expression of the desire to pursue secession by the population of a province gave rise to a reciprocal obligation on all parties to the federation to negotiate constitutional changes to respond to that desire. To understand this astonishing decision, the author first examines how, over time, in Canada and Quebec, issues of identity(ies), constitutional law, and democracy came to be formulated in absolutist terms, making political compromises next to impossible. Only then does he analyse the Supreme Court’s decision and attempts to explain why the latter chose to decide as it did.

Intergovernmental Relations‘ Third Wheel: The Role of the Supreme Court in an Era of Collaborative Federalism

Federalism-E ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Allison O‘Beirne
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Intergovernmental Relations ◽  
Supreme Court Of Canada ◽  
Division Of Powers ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Way

The Supreme Court of Canada has an absolutely undeniable role in intergovernmental relations. As the country‘s only constitutionally entrenched body charged with the resolution of division-of-powers disputes, its decisions and rulings are always certain to influence the way in which governments interact with each other. Recently, however, the Supreme Court has come to be less highly regarded as a method of resolving the disputes that arise between governments [...]

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