Judicial Decision Making In the Supreme Court of Canada: Updating the Personal Attribute Model

Songer, Donald R.; Johnson, Susan W.

doi:10.1017/s0008423907071156

Cited by 26 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Studies of crucial mass theory in legislatures also suggest that it is largely in the realm of issues that are of immediate importance for women, that we would likely see the greatest policy impact of female representation (Norris and Lovenduski 2001). Similarly, in the context of civil liberties claims, female justices at the Supreme Court level are more likely to render liberal decisions and at the same time render conservative decisions in criminal cases, which also confirms the findings of previous studies (Songer and Johnson 2007, Ostberg and Wetstein 2008, Johnson 2008.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Notably, however, even after controlling for these strong regional and partisan effects, judge gender appears to affect the trends in judicial voting. As noted in previous studies (Songer and Johnson 2007;Songer 2008), female justices in Canada were substantially more likely than their brethren to support pro-prosecution outcomes. In contrast to gender studies of judicial voting in the US that either have found no differences in criminal cases between male or female judges or have found female judges more likely to support a pro-defendant position, female justices on the Supreme Court of Canada appear to manifest support for a communitarian perspective that stresses the need to protect the interest of the larger society to be free from criminal actions that tend to break down the bonds that hold the community together.…”

Section: The Base Model Of Gender Differencesupporting

confidence: 57%

“…While the theory behind the attitudinal model was developed in the context of voting on the Supreme Court of the United States, there is substantial evidence that the political preferences of the justices have a substantial impact on the outcomes of judicial decisions in Canadian appellate courts as well (Peck 1964;Fouts 1969;Tate and Sittiwong 1989;Heard 1991;Ostberg et al 2002;Songer and Johnson 2007;Ostberg and Wetstein 2007;Songer 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using a somewhat longer period, Songer and Johnson (2007) found that female Canadian Supreme Court justices were significantly more likely than their male colleagues to support a liberal outcome in non-unanimous votes in civil liberties cases. However there were no significant gender differences in economic cases.…”

Section: Previous Empirical Analyses Of Gender Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Judge Gender, Critical Mass, and Decision Making in the Appellate Courts of Canada

Johnson

Songer

Jilani

2011

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

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According to Justice Bertha Wilson, there is "overwhelming evidence that gender-based stereotypes are deeply embedded in the attitudes of many male judges" and that "gender difference has been a significant factor in judicial decision-making". Unfortunately, Justice Wilson's observation has been subjected to few empirical tests. At the same time, scholarship suggests that in other contexts (e.g., legislatures), the presence of a "critical mass" of women may be necessary before substantive gender based differences emerge. It is important to know whether these gender differences do exist and whether they only appear after a "critical mass" of women have been appointed because an implicit premise in the argument for affirmative diversification in elite appointments is that gender matters substantively. We seek to explore the validity of these assumptions by analyzing the votes of judges in the Supreme Court and the provincial appellate courts of Canada. Canada provides an ideal setting to explore these questions because since the early 1980s female representation on appellate courts has gone from virtually non-existent to 44% on the Supreme Court and over 50% on some appellate courts. We propose to test whether there are gendered patterns of voting, and if so, whether such patterns appear only after a critical mass is reached, using a logistic regression model of the differences in the voting behavior of male versus female justices, using the universe of Supreme Court votes from 1982 through 2007 and a sample of the votes of judges on the provincial courts of appeal. Our analysis then comes to the conclusion that supports previous research into gendered voting; namely that women vote more liberally on civil rights and equality as well as private economic cases, and more conservatively on criminal cases. However, we find no evidence that indicates a need for women judges and justices to be accompanied by other female colleagues for them to vote sincerely.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: The Base Model Of Gender Differencesupporting

confidence: 57%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Previous Empirical Analyses Of Gender Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Judge Gender, Critical Mass, and Decision Making in the Appellate Courts of Canada

Johnson

Songer

Jilani

2011

Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

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“…votes of individual justices~see, for example, Ostberg and Wetstein, 2007;Songer and Johnson, 2007;Schubert, 1965;Segal and Spaeth, 1993Rohde and Spaeth, 1976;Robertson, 1998;Peck, 1969!. Instead, the debate~Kritzer et al,1998!…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unanimous Decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada as a Test of the Attitudinal Model

Songer

Siripurapu²

2009

Can J Pol Sci

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Abstract. Most of the empirical work on the decision making of justices on the Supreme Court of Canada has taken as its exclusive focus the divided decisions of the Court. In contrast to this extensive body of research on divided decision, the much more limited knowledge of unanimous decisions is troubling because such decisions constitute nearly three-quarters of all of the formal decisions of the Court. The analysis reported below provides a first step towards understanding the neglected nature of unanimous decisions. This investigation of the nature and causes of unanimity in the Supreme Court of Canada explores two competing explanations: one drawn from the most widely accepted general explanation of judicial voting (that is, the attitudinal model) and the other from the perspectives of the justices themselves. To determine that perspective, the author interviewed ten of the current or recent justices on the Court. After describing these two alternative accounts of unanimity, empirical tests are conducted of the implications of each view. We find substantially more support for the perspectives of the justices than for the perspective derived from the attitudinal model on unanimity.Résumé. La majeure partie du travail de recherche empirique portant sur la manière dont les juges de la Cour suprême du Canada prennent leurs décisions se concentre exclusivement sur les décisions divisées de cette institution. En contraste avec cette foison d'études sur les décisions divisées, le corpus beaucoup plus limité de connaissances sur les décisions unanimes pose un problème important, car celles-ci représentent presque les trois quarts de la totalité des décisions formelles de la Cour suprême. L'analyse présentée ci-dessous se veut un premier pas vers une meilleure connaissance de la nature, trop négligée jusqu'à présent, de ces décisions unanimes. Cette investigation sur la nature et les causes de l'unanimité dans les décisions de la Cour suprême du Canada explore deux voies se trouvant en compétition : l'une qui résulte de l'explication la plus largement acceptée du vote judiciaire (soit le modèle attitudinal), et l'autre qui découle de la perspective personnelle des juges. Pour élucider cette perspective propre des juges, les auteurs ont interviewé dix juges actuels et récents de la Cour suprême du Canada. Après avoir décrit ces deux explications alternatives de l'unanimité, ils effectuent des tests empiriques sur les implications respectives du modèle attitudinal et des perspectives propres des juges. L'étude révèle que les perspectives propres des juges ont beaucoup plus de poids que la perspective dérivée du modèle attitudinal en ce qui concerne l'unanimité.

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Strategic Deference in the Colombian Constitutional Court, 1992–2006

Rodríguez‐Raga

2011

Courts in Latin America

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Under what conditions are justices able to make decisions that are contrary to the executive's preferences in strong Latin American presidentialisms? To answer this question, I formulate a theory of interbranch relations, particularly of the interplay between courts and justices, on the one hand, and executives and legislatures on the other. The model of strategic prudence involves a game between two players-a court and a government-as well as a stage in which this game takes place, including the institutional design and the political environment. It specifies how players' policy preferences and their assessments of the personal and institutional risks involved in their decision making interact with the institutional setting and the political context. Based on the empirical implications derived from the game, I hypothesize that when courts are institutionally insulated, justices are more likely to decide based on their own preferences, while an institutionally weak court makes them act strategically based on their perception of how the political environment enhances or hinders the government's ability to build a coalition to sanction the court. I test the empirical predictions of the game with the case of the Colombian Constitutional Court (CCC). I combine qualitative evidence, including press coverage and interviews with former justices and law clerks, with a systematic quantitative analysis of an original dataset of abstract review cases decided by the CCC between 1992 and 2006. Given its well-deserved reputation of autonomy and progressive activism, the CCC provides a-crucial case‖ test of the strategic prudence theory. The analysis of individual judicial decisions provides v strong evidence supporting the hypotheses derived from the game's comparative statics analysis. Justices tend to be prudent when they face a strong administration and when the case under review is salient for the executive. In addition, they are more likely to annul legislation when they have stronger preferences against it and when they anticipate that the incumbent would have to pay a higher cost should it attempt sanctioning the court. This dissertation contributes to the subfield of judicial politics in Latin America and is the first comprehensive study of the Constitutional Court in Colombia. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Judicial Decision Making In the Supreme Court of Canada: Updating the Personal Attribute Model

Cited by 26 publications

References 21 publications

Judge Gender, Critical Mass, and Decision Making in the Appellate Courts of Canada

Judge Gender, Critical Mass, and Decision Making in the Appellate Courts of Canada

The Unanimous Decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada as a Test of the Attitudinal Model

Strategic Deference in the Colombian Constitutional Court, 1992–2006

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