Law, Politics, and the Judicial Process in Canada ed. by F.L. Morton and Dave Snow (review)

The editors of this volume of largely fragmented articles and cases argue that the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) is the cause and effect of many changes in Canada's legal and political systems, and that the Court's activist decisions in hundreds of Charter cases is felt beyond the litigants, impacting SCC processes and procedures, judicial appointments, legal scholarship, increased participation by interest groups, as well as impacting government policy. To support this position, the editors take us through 12 chapters of material, from the concept of the 'rule of law', to how judges are selected and make decisions, and end questioning the judiciary's role in relation to the legislative branch. This edition updates the fifteen-year old third edition by overhauling or removing a number of articles and adding two new chapters – on aboriginal law and about the conflict between former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the SCC. Forty of the 78 articles are new.

It is difficult to assess this book's value as the preface does not say whether it is a course textbook, a reference, or something for the general public. If intended as a textbook, it fails on two counts (three if one counts the weight added to a backpack). Today, much of the material can be accessed via other means and, as suggested by a reviewer of the first edition, 'as a "coursebook" it is … difficult to review since the teaching of a course can be a very personal thing' and the materials selected will be peculiar to the course and the instructor's interests. As a reference tool, its value is limited to providing the reader with an editor-selected excerpt of the article, a reference, recommended key words and sources for the reader to explore further. Most of the selected material is used to support the editors' argument and one is left wondering what is missing. This edition may have some greater success if targeted at a general audience, except that readers may come away with inaccurate impressions, for example, that historically academic commentaries did not serve as primary sources of authority in Canada or that one can understand Dicey's rule of law by reading the few pages selected by the editors.

Helpful to readers are the editors' updates to dated articles (that the 'right of appeal in civil cases was abolished in 1975' (p. 347)), references to an article earlier or later than the one is reading, and the occasional presentation of different sides of an issue (Hogg/Thorton 'versus Morton' (pp. 616–27) and Hein and Brodie). Unfortunately, the constant adherence to the conservative school of thought of the book's original, and continuing editor, does not provide the balanced discussion of the topic which one should expect. The editors are familiar with and quote from Dicey's Law and Public Opinion(p. 331) but chose not to include his sections about how judges make law which would have been a useful addition to the book.