Abstract
Canada is a federal parliamentary system. Its constitution has, since 1867, distributed legislative power between the federal parliament and the provincial parliaments (now ten in number). The Supreme Court of Canada has for over a century decided constitutional cases concerning the distribution of power between federal and provincial governments. The Canadian legal system as a whole is built on a British common law heritage with the exception of Quebec, which is governed by civil law on matters within its jurisdiction.
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Notes
For a constitutional law casebook designed for non-law students, see Peter H. Russell, Leading Constitutional Decisions, 3rd edn (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1982)
for the definitive treatise in the field, see Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada, 2nd edn (Toronto: Carswell, 1985).
See generally Paul Weiler, In the Last Resort: A Critical Study of the Supreme Court of Canada (Toronto: Carswell, 1974).
See J. A. Corry, ‘Constitutional Trends and Federalism’, in A. R. M. Lower, et al., Evolving Canadian Federalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958).
Peter Russell, ‘Judicial Power in Canada’s Political Culture’, in Courts and Trials: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Martin L. Friedland (ed.), (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975).
Peter H. Russell, ‘The Supreme Court and Federal-Provincial Relations: The Political Use of Legal Resources’, Canadian Public Policy, XI: 161 (June 1985), pp. 168–9.
Material in this section is drawn largely from chapter 4 of Perry S. Millar and Carl Baar, Judicial Administration in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1981) and
Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Manpower, Resources and Costs of Courts and Criminal Prosecutions in Canada 1980–82 (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1983).
Contrast William R. Lederman, ‘Constitutional Procedure and the Reform of the Supreme Court of Canada’, Les Cahiers de Droit XXVI: 195 (March 1985),
with Peter W. Hogg, Canada Act 1982 Annotated (Toronto: Carswell, 1982), pp. 92–4.
Jules Deschênes with the collaboration of Carl Baar, Maîtres chez eux/Masters in Their Own House (Ottawa: Canadian Judicial Council, 1981), pp. 112–14.
Gerald L. Gall, The Canadian Legal System (Toronto: Carswell, 1977), pp. 155–6.
Relevant material may be found in F. L. Morton (ed.), Law, Politics and the Judicial Process in Canada (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1984), pp. 108–20.
Morton’s book is an excellent current source of material on the Canadian judicial process. For a history of civil liberties in Canada, see Thomas R. Berger’s book, Fragile Freedoms: Human Rights and Dissent in Canada (Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1981).
For the best-known critique of United States judicial activism, see Donald L. Horowitz, The Courts and Social Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1977).
See H. R. Poultney, ‘The Criminal Courts of the Province of Ontario and Their Process’, Law Society of Upper Canada Gazette, IX: 192 (September 1975).
See for example David Ricardo Williams, Duff: A Life in the Law (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1984), and the forthcoming history of the Supreme Court of Canada by James Snell and Frederick Vaughan.
Carl Baar, ‘Patterns and Strategies of Court Administration in Canada and the United States’, Canadian Public Administration, XX: 242 (Summer 1977).
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© 1988 Jerold L. Waltman and Kenneth M. Holland
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Baar, C. (1988). The Courts in Canada. In: Waltman, J.L., Holland, K.M. (eds) The Political Role of Law Courts in Modern Democracies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-19081-2_4
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