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The major premise, minor premise, and conclusion of this Article are one and the same - for, they conduce to an acceptance of the fact that the social constructs and legal tools necessary for the modern judiciary to meet head-on and deal with the contentious issues of bioethics and biotechnology are already in place. To resolve problems arising from these potential quagmires, perhaps the major concern is for the courts to remain forever vigilant to the interlinking relationships or synergistic forces found in law, science, ethics, and medicine. Without vigilance and enhanced awareness of the dynamic and fluid situation here, both the bench and the bar will increasingly lack understanding of the questions to be asked, let alone the answers to be given in this New Age of Science. What is called for is a modified form of judicial activism - not grounded in the heresy of deconstruction - but rather one shaped by reason, understanding, and contemporary social policy and one that is calibrated by the scientific gatekeeping role of the federal courts. When, owing to exigencies of time, laws become largely impotent or even moribund, and new ones are not enacted because of the legislator's lethargic passivity, ignorance, or failure to release themselves from the vortex of emotionalism which enmeshes certain issues, then it remains for the courts to seize the initiative and fill the void of indecisiveness. Through interpretative policies guided by reason, common sense, equity, and analogy, the courts can chart with confidence a new common law of biotechnology - one that begins to build a framework for principled decisionmaking upon which stability and predictability can be assured. Absent this legal mechanism or process of decisionmaking, it remains for science to direct the future course of development for the new Age of Biotechnology and law to remain a reactive force. Ideally, however, a full partnership of interest and action should be sought by law, science, ethics, and medicine if progress is to be achieved over the succeeding years.

This article is part of an effort to place current research on the Canadian judicial process into a broader theoretical context. This effort developed first from a sense that the legal and behavioural frameworks that have dominated the explanation of judicial decision making in the United States Supreme Court obscure more than they illuminate about judicial decision making in Canada; and second from the realization that the most illuminating American studies — those that trace the process by which major cases are brought before the courts and decided — are seen as interesting but atheoretical, as journalism not science. Perhaps our theory is out of joint. And perhaps an effort to understand how American theories and research on judicial decision making can inform Canadian research may be instructive both to American judicial studies and to the work of those outside the United States who are continually tugged toward American approaches that promise liberation from traditional legal analysis.

Existing literature highlights that constitutional courts influence lawmakers' policy choices without actively intervening in the policymaking process. Lawmakers know that courts may scrutinize their acts and have incentives to amend their policies to pre-empt judicial interventions. However, evidence suggests that lawmakers are not always prepared to sacrifice policy objectives to avoid censure from courts. I develop a formal model showing how lawmakers who provoke confrontations with courts shape judicial decision-making. Drawing on an original dataset of German federal laws adopted between 1977 and 2015 that were reviewed by the German Federal Constitutional Court, I then show that the Court moderated its strike rate of laws when lawmakers had dismissed credible advice that their acts were unconstitutional. The theoretical argument and empirical evidence indicate that courts are more likely to show deference to lawmakers who push constitutional boundaries in their policy choices.

Introduction -- What do we Mean by Precedent? Empirical Evidence of Ordinary Usage -- Severity Bias Across Different Types of Mens rea -- "That's Him!": Evaluating a Hypothesis about Guilt Within the Context of a Suspect Lineup -- Judicial Discretion and Debiasing -- The Whole Truth About Dina: Judicial Reasoning and the Conjunction Fallacy -- An Analytic Framework for the Study of Legal Actors -- Judicial Activism – The Need for Parameters: Analysis of Legal Reasoning in Judicial Review -- How Authoritarian is the Slovenian Constitutional Court? -- Hercules on a Diet -- Exploring the Challenges of Artificial Judicial Decision Making for Liberal Democracy.