Le débat autour du bilinguisme des juges à la Cour suprême du Canada: analyse de la doctrine et des débats parlementaires

Jiménez-Salcedo, Juan

doi:10.1007/s11196-020-09709-6

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Since the mid-2000s, judicial bilingualism has become increasingly contentious. Opposition members of parliament (MPs) have fueled the controversy by tabling bills to amend either the Official Languages Act 1 (OLA) or the Supreme Court Act 2 (SCA) (for a summary, see Jimenez-Salcedo 2020 and Bédard-Rubin 2021a). Amending the former, which the Liberals promised to do in their comprehensive reform of the OLA, would require the Supreme Court to ensure justices were functional in the official language chosen by the parties, like all other federal courts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Elusive Quest for French on the Bench: Bilingualism Scores for Canadian Supreme Court Justices, 1985–2013

Bédard-Rubin

Rubin²

2022

Can. j. law soc.

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This article explores normative arguments for mandatory judicial bilingualism. It disentangles the links between the normative reasons advanced for mandatory bilingualism and the correlative level of French that should be expected of judges. To provide empirical anchoring, we construct a bilingualism score of Canadian Supreme Court justices composed of four indicators. The score shows that non-systematic assessments used so far like self-assessments, parliamentary hearings and media coverage are not reliable instruments to predict the level of use of French on the Supreme Court. Also, the score suggests that institutional dynamics have an impact worth studying in more depth. Ultimately, the measurement of functional bilingualism depends first on which linguistic capacity is being measured. This, in turn, depends on the normative reasons supporting the requirement of functional bilingualism. Instead of asking whether French should be mandatory upon appointment, it might be more productive to ask how much French should be required.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%