Judges and Judging: Inside the Canadian Judicial System

Henri R. Pallard is a professor of law and justice at Laurentian
University.

Over the last few decades the Canadian judiciary has come to play a more
important role in defining our social values. Only since the advent of
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, however, has the public truly begun
to question itself about the men and women who sit in our courthouses
and administer justice. Some information was previously available, but
in a variety of sources relatively inaccessible to the average person.
Judges and Judging builds on this previously existing
research—presented in a very useful bibliography—and on some new
research to provide us with the most complete picture to date of
Canada’s judges and of how they make decisions. This book is not a
legal book about judges and the process of judging; instead, its
authors, who are both professors of political science, have used the
techniques of social science research to describe Canadian judges and
their attitudes to some of the fundamental aspects of judging.

Part 1 presents a general overview of the Canadian court system and its
adjudicative function, the system of judicial appointment in Canada and
the role of patronage in the nomination process, and the background
characteristics of judges—such as race, sex, creed, class, and age.
Part 2 examines judges’ attitudes; for example, why they accepted the
opportunity to become judges and how they view the role of the judge.
Particularly interesting are the two chapters contrasting judicial
attitudes toward decision-making at the level of the trial courts and at
the level of appeal courts. Part 3 examines judges’ attitudes toward
judicial law-making. There are some very candid remarks by judges on how
they try to distinguish a precedent with which they disagree and on
whether judges should legislate.

Canadian society is becoming more cognizant of the importance of the
judiciary as a social institution in the shaping of social values. The
information presented in this book on our judges and their perception of
the task of judging will help demystify the judiciary; Canadians can
thus become more informed players in the debate surrounding the role of
the judiciary in the interpretation of the Charter.