The Supreme Court of Canada Is a Political Institution and Its Justices Are Important Political Actors

This book proceeds from the premise that the Supreme Court of Canada is a political institution and that its justices are important political actors. This is not to equate the institution with elected legislatures or its justices with politicians. Indeed, one of the main objectives of this study is to examine the multitude of ways in which the judges of the Court are bound by their conceptions of their appropriate role and that of the institution in which they work. Nevertheless, the analysis that follows supports the argument put forward by many political scientists that judicial policy making is not an accidental by-product of the Court’s adjudicative function. Rather, it is a result of the justices’ determination that one set of legal rules is more socially beneficial than another.

--Emmett Macfarlane, introduction to Governing from the Bench: The Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Role, Law and Society (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013), 5.