Questioning Judges with a Questionable Process: An Analysis of Committee Appearances by Canadian Supreme Court Candidates

Abstract

In 2006, the Canadian government introduced a new component to its process of selecting Supreme Court justices, a review committee composed of members of Parliament. Tasked with interviewing justices prior to their appointment to the bench, the committee met four times, interviewing only five of the eight judicial candidates appointed to the bench before the Conservative government announced the committee's termination in 2014. This study offers the first comprehensive analysis of the performance of this ad hoc judicial review committee. Using an original dataset, we find that MPs asked little by way of probing questions, such as those related to policy or a candidate's previous jurisprudence. However, we do find some evidence that the hearing process was used to further the political aims of the participating political parties.

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

“…Opponents of the bilingualism requirement, in either form, have decried its incompatibility with regional representation (e.g., Doughart 2016), its hindrance on the promotion of diversity on the bench (e.g., Ha-Redeye 2016), its hampering reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in reasserting the primacy of colonial languages and legal traditions (e.g., Nasager 2019; Matthews 2019), or its incompatibility with the prioritization of judicial competence in general (for a summary, see Bédard-Rubin 2021b). With the implementation of a more open judicial appointment process since 2004, judges have been questioned extensively about their linguistic capacities (Lawlor and Crandall 2015). Language has become one of the main features of the media coverage of the Supreme Court appointment process (Schneiderman 2015; Crandall and Lawlor 2015).…”

The Overturning ofRoe v. Wade: Are Abortion Rights in Canada Vulnerable?

“…Even the relatively recent adoption of having appointees appear before a parliamentary committee to answer questions has generally avoided overt partisanship. Andrea Lawlor and Erin Crandall (2015) find that MPs do not ask questions about the policy preferences or personal beliefs of appointees. Questions about past or potential cases are verboten.…”