Majority politics and minority rights

The authority of the courts to interpret laws and their separation from the legislature have launched a significant, and inevitable, skepticism towards the role of the court and its "activist" judgements, occasionally perceived to encroach into the domain of policy-making. [...] The Charter of Rights and Freedoms has undeniably affected policy development in Canada, and detractors of the judiciary have alluded to the possibility that an unintended consequence of the Charter has been the stifling of Parliamentary independence and of policy effectiveness. [...] Institute On Governance, Ottawa, Canada risk damaging the credibility of the institution of the Canadian courts and the public’s confidence in our system of justice as a whole.”51 The Honourable Don Boudria extolled judicial review as a protection rather than an enemy of democracy, and Richard Marceau of the Bloc Québécois similarly rejected the motion, explaining his party’s position that the “pr [...] The Independence of the Judiciary A common criticism of the judiciary stems from the position of the courts as isolated from the pulse of societal concerns and unaccountable to the general public as opposed to their elected counterparts in the House of Commons, who are responsible for representing the views of their constituents in their actions in Parliament. [...] Conversely, Madison reaffirms the protection the judiciary offers for minority rights: This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which…have a tendency, in the mea