Summary: The Canadian Judicial System

Over the years, our judicial system has changed quite dramatically. Our Supreme Court has gone from six judges (with two from Quebec) in 1875, to seven judges (1927), to a total of nine judges (with three from Quebec) in 1949 (Smith, 2015, p.130). That is quite a big change on its own. However, the Supreme Court of Canada’s role is one element of the judicial system that has had even more of a considerable development. The transformation of our Supreme Court all started in 1960 when Canada got introduced to the Bill of Rights (Stewart, 2015, Week Four). This lead the Supreme Court of Canada to become a sort-of individual rights guardian (Stewart, 2015, Week Four). Prior to this though, Canada acted in accordance with Britain and dumped the

These new developments for Canada’s judicial system exhibited imperfections compared to the American system; specifically, the Bill of Rights (Stewart, 2015, Week Four). With this, our legislation got stronger and Canada shifted towards the American system and became more and more distant from the British system (Stewart, 2015, Week Four). The inclusion of Charter of Rights and Freedoms gave the Supreme Court of Canada more power; the judicial review. It gave the court the capability to both review and override any decisions that were made by the legislation; that is, if the court concludes that the act breaches any provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Stewart, 2015, Week Four). This also brought about a provision under the Supreme Court Act that states that the Supreme Court of Canada has the power to declare judgment and instruct both the federal and provincial governments (questions of law and fact) (Remillard, 2006). Overall, in Canada, the role of the Supreme Court has be altered numerous times since 1982 (and a bit before that) in order to make our country the way it is today. In the end, through trying British tradition and American liberalism, Canada eventually found its own approach of managing our judicial