Suchergebnisse

"Value Change in the Supreme Court of Canada is a groundbreaking analysis of the degree to which Supreme Court decisions reflect the changing values of society over the past four decades. Focusing on three key areas of law: environmental disputes, free speech, and discrimination cases, Wetstein and Ostberg provide a revealing analysis of the language used by Supreme Court justices in landmark rulings in order to document the way that value changes are transmitted into the legal and political landscape. Bolstered by a comprehensive and nuanced blend of research methods, Value Change in the Supreme Court of Canada offers a sweeping analysis of pre- and post-Charter influences, one that will be of significant interest to political scientists, lawyers, journalists, and anyone interested in the increasingly powerful role of the Supreme Court."--

ObjectiveThis study examines Ronald Inglehart's theory of value change in the Supreme Court of Canada. The theory has received little attention in the public law literature, yet its central tenet suggests that intergenerational value change might influence the way that Supreme Court justices decide cases over time.MethodUsing a socio‐attitudinal model of judicial behavior, the study analyzes all environmental decisions between 1973 and 2010. Case outcomes are coded as either pro‐environmental (1) or anti‐environmental (0). Logistic regression analysis examines whether Court tenures, case facts, and judge‐level variables have a significant impact on predicting a postmaterialist outcome.ResultsWe find evidence of postmaterialist, pro‐environmental value change, with more contemporary justices exhibiting pro‐environmental positions, even in the face of rival variables.ConclusionOur results suggest that intergenerational value change has influenced decision making in Canadian environmental cases over the last 40 years, and indicate the theory may have relevance for explaining other high court change over time in a postmaterialist direction.

A bounded rationality theory of judicial decision making often cited in the US is examined in terms of its validity in the Canadian context, replicating previous studies by Jeffrey A. Segal (1984, 1986) & Segal & Harold J. Spaeth (1993) to assess whether factual circumstances, along with attitudinal variables, influence the decision-making process of the Canadian Court in search & seizure cases. Logistic regression is used to analyze the impact of factual circumstances & ideology variables on 279 search & seizure votes in the first decade of post-Charter cases (1984-1994). The model correctly predicts 77% of the judicial decisions, providing a 25% improvement (proportional reduction in error) over the null model. More important, many of the same factual variables that prove significant in the US cases are significant in Canada as well. In addition, results demonstrate that ideology plays a role in shaping the decisions of Canadian justices in these cases. Further replication of the factual model may be warranted in other cultural settings. 1 Table, 33 References. Adapted from the source document.