POLS 3130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Provincial Judges Reference, Judicial Independence, Constitution Act, 1982

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 3130
• Professor: Dave Snow

Document Summary

Institutional relationship between judiciary and external actors: primarily executive and legislature. Three components: financial security (scc, administrative autonomy, security of tenure (scc) Judges are required to sign a paper stating whether or not they have done something in the past that may be an issue. Tension between judicial independence and accountability: having elected judges means they are less independent, but more accountable, usually the more accountable a judge is, the less independent, and vice versa. Political context: resource scarcity, budget cuts, assertive judiciary. Independence: relationship to others: particularly executive branch, objective, relational. Judges speak only through decisions: no justification other than oral/written, not answerable to bureaucracy. Drawn from independent legal profession: highly autonomous, provincially self-regulated, governments step back and let law societies govern themselves. Governments: pass laws enforced by courts, appoint (and even remove) judges, authorize fu(cid:374)di(cid:374)g for (cid:272)ourts(cid:859) i(cid:374)frastru(cid:272)ture, appear as litigant the most, pay judicial salaries from revenues. Three components: financial security, without: arbitrary wage decreases.