Banal Injustice

Canadians often look askance at the American habit of electing judges: Is a fair hearing on the merits truly possible when the judge has one eye on the clock counting down to his or her next date with the ballot? Would you want your case decided by someone whose primary qualification for the job was an ability to network successfully with power brokers? How comfortable would you be having life-altering decisions about your rights made by someone who knows that their continued employment is contingent on their decision being deemed acceptable by prospective campaign financiers? But as Ron Ellis comprehensively demonstrates in Unjust by Design: Canada’s Administrative Justice System, for many adjudicative decisions in Canada, the situation is even worse than that, lacking even the patina of democratic accountability offered by elections.

Before readers cock a dubious eyebrow, some background is in order. The titular “administrative justice system” is the welter...