Philip Slayton’s new book, Mighty Judgment: How the Supreme Court of Canada Runs Your Life, comes at a particularly appropriate time. In the aftermath of a landmark federal election, Canada’s new majority government will probably have the opportunity to appoint five members of the Supreme Court and these five individuals could dramatically change the court’s role in Canadian politics. Moreover, this dramatic opportunity may bring pressure to reconsider past practices for appointing justices.
Mighty Judgment is not written for scholars. Slayton pitches his message to a general readership of Canadian citizens who may know very little about either the importance or the actual workings of their supreme court. Giving an insider’s look at how the court operates, he mixes telling detail with enlivening anecdote. How has the court’s functioning been affected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? What major cases have defined the court’s post-Charter role...
Donald R. Songer is the Olin D. Johnston Professor of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. His book, The Transformation of the Supreme Court of Canada, was published by University of Toronto Press in 2008 and McGill-Queen’s University Press will publish Law, Ideology and Collegiality: Judicial Behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada this fall.
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