Appointed Politician Shuns Elected Politicians

The chief Supreme politician wants elected politicians not to be involved in judicial politics.

Chief Justice Beverly McLaughlin reportedly does not want the process to select Supreme Court Justices to be politicised. Interestingly, when Liberals and select interest groups have pushed for one judge over another to be appointed, the Supreme Justice has never complained about politicisation.

Chief Justice McLaughlin said the public would not want its high court to be a “mirror� of Parliament.

There is something really curious about this. The appointed Judge is not making a constitutional argument about balancing democratic power, or a legal argument in favour of the present arrangement of selecting judges. She is basing her remarks on her supposed understanding of what the public wants. It is an argument based on a democratic appeal.

But under our constitutional structure, elected members of the House of Commons are the repository of democratic authority. MPs, not judges, may speak for the public. Law is the business of judges, not public opinion.

When judges claim authority on the basis of what the public wants, they are shamelessly usurping the authority of the Commons –and hence the voice of the electorate. The point of having MPs elected is so that they may have the required proximity to the pulse of public opinion. Judges are appointed precisely to insulate them from public opinion.

The demagoguery of the Chief Justice is apparent. In essence, McLaughlin is politicking when she appeals to public opinion, and in doing so, she undermines her own argument rejecting the politicisation of the judicial (Isn’t it kind of late for that?). By acting like a politicians she is very much politicising her own office.

Ultimately, Chief Justice McLaughlin is either demonstrating supreme ignorance about our proper constitutional order, or a blatant desire to beat politicians at their own game. Either way, she undermines the legitimacy of her office.

Crossposted from Civitatensis.ca