Judicial Review In Canada

The supreme court of Canada has overruled numerous laws put forward by the Harper government. In 2010, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was opposed to the Vancouver Eastside supervised injection site. Stephen Harper took a conservative approach to the issue, he said that “we as a government will not use taxpayers money to fund drug use” (Rachlis, 2010). The Prime Minister did not recognize potential benefits to Canadian society as he focused on budgeting, without recognizing the benefit to public welfare that would reduce disease, death and have a rehabilitative effect on participants of the program. Judicial decisions play an influential role in the provisions of the Constitution because their interpretation is essential to understanding

An early example of judicial review is where courts considered content of legislation such as the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act in 1985 where the courts aimed at identifying the true meaning of the disputed law according to their interpretation. The interpretation required a fault element for all penal consequences that was not seen before (OJEN, 2006). The constitutional charter of rights and freedoms further expands judges power to strike down legislation if deemed unconstitutional and read in making laws conform to rights guaranteed by the Charter (Huscroft, 2012). More recently The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down two federal laws from the previous Conservative government’s tough-on-crime agenda, ruling both to be unconstitutional. The unconstitutional laws were minimum sentences for drug crime convictions and restrictions put on the accused’s rights (Press, 2016). Without the power vested in judge’s individuals would have gone to prison and for standard amount of time without understanding issues associated with a crime. This tough on crime strategy would increase the amount of people in prison and would cast a wide net on how many people could implicated. The concept of Charter proofing can be regarded as an indirect way of judges influencing law by making government Charter conscious as they shape laws into having a reasonable

The production of common law is held with the notion of stare decisis where judges remain consistent in the use of interpretive principle in litigation that works in accordance with precedent. Common law brings judges into the realm of law making because it evolves over time as judges find features in cases before them that different from precedent cases judges must interpret and apply relevant legislation and similar rulings to cases before it. The law of negligence is mainly judge made law and is involved in numerous car accident cases in B.C., which makes up over one-third of all lawsuits filed in the supreme court (Press, 2015). According to Daniel Schwartz (2012), institutionally the Charter significantly transferred enormous policy making power to the courts. Judicial activism has been characterized by judge’s readiness to veto policies proposed of by other branches of government. It can further be understood as judges pursuing particular political agendas and allowing personal views to determine outcomes of cases. Judges are using their judicial power in their roles as activists for a certain cause (Anand, 2006). An example of this is the Chaoulli case, where the judgment declared unconstitutional the prohibition of private healthcare insurance and challenged the principle of Canadian universal health care, creating a