Attitudinal Decision Making in the Supreme Court of Canada

By C.L. Ostberg & Matthew E. Wetstein
Categories: Law & Legal Studies, Law & Society
Series: Law and Society
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774813112, 288 pages, March 2007
Paperback : 9780774813129, 288 pages, January 2008
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774855846, 288 pages, January 2008

Table of contents

Tables and Figures

Acknowledgments

1 Models of Judicial Behaviour and the Canadian Supreme Court

2 The Viability of the Attitudinal Model in the Canadian Context

3 Measuring Judicial Ideology

4 Attitudinal Conflict in Criminal Cases

5 Attitudinal Conflict in Civil Rights and Liberties Cases

6 Attitudinal Conflict in Economic Cases

7 Attitudinal Consistency in the Post-Charter Supreme Court

8 The Political and Social Implications of Post-Charter Judicial Behaviour

Notes

References

Index

Description

This book provides a comprehensive exploration of ideological patterns of judicial behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada. Relying on an expansive database of Canadian Supreme Court rulings between 1984 and 2003, the authors present the most systematic discussion of the attitudinal model of decision making ever conducted outside the setting of the US Supreme Court. The groundbreaking discussion of the viability of this model as a unifying theory of judicial behaviour in high courts around the world will be essential reading for a wide range of legal scholars and court watchers.

Reviews

In this thorough study, Ostberg and Wetstein apply the attitudinal theory of judicial decision-making, well established in the United States as a predictor of judicial behavior, to Supreme Court of Canada cases between 1984 and 2003 ... The book is clearly and concisely written and of interest to both legal scholars and laypeople with an interest in politics.

- Emily Luther