SOC 3740 Chapter 1: Canada's Courts - Chapter 1

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 3740
• Professor: Michelle Dumas

Document Summary

Canada"s courts: chapter 1: courts, law and society. It is important to know how lawyers and judge think about their work and define their ideals. Any institution, any formal process, has many faces and belongs sin different senses and to different degrees to many different sets of actors. The judicial process is not self contained; it is embedded in a social and political reality with which it constantly interacts. Most people have no experience with the judicial process except through the lower trial courts, and therefore, the cumulative impact of the decisions are very important. It is assumed that less than 1% of decisions in courts are appealed to the next and higher court. Because of the way judges make and justify their decisions, the cases in higher courts are normally presumed to have an influence that can extend far beyond the immediate case.