Explaining Dissent on the Supreme Court of Canada

Abstract

Abstract.While there is an extensive literature on the causes of dissensus on appellate courts in the US, few empirical studies exist of the causes of dissent in Canadian Supreme Court. The current study seeks to close that gap in the literature, proposing and then testing what we call a Canadian model of dissent. We find that the likelihood of dissent is strongly related to four broad factors that appear to exert independent influence on whether the Court is consensual or divided: political conflict, institutional structure, legal ambiguity in the law and variations in the leadership style of the chief justice.Résumé.Les causes de dissension dans les cours d'appel aux États-Unis font l'objet de nombreux articles et publications, mais il existe très peu d'études empiriques sur les causes de dissidence à la Cour suprême du Canada. La présente étude vise à combler cette lacune en proposant, un modèle canadien de dissension, puis en le mettant à l'épreuve. Nous avons constaté que le risque de dissension est fortement lié à quatre facteurs genéraux qui semblent exercer une influence indépendante, que la Cour soit en accord ou divisée. Ces facteurs sont le conflit politique, la structure institutionnelle, la présence d'une ambiguité juridique dans la loi et le style de direction du juge en chef.

Quantitative Analysis of Judicial Voting

“…An increase in workload has been found to be associated with a decrease in the dissent rate at the US Supreme Court (Epstein, Landes and Posner 2013) and the Australian High Court (Smyth 2004), with Epstein, Landes and Posner (2013) finding that a 10 percent increase in workload is correlated with about a three percent decline in the dissent rate. Other studies, however, have found no or only a weak association between workload and dissent rate in a number of countries (Walker, Epstein and Dixon 1988;Alarie and Green 2017;Songer et al 2011). The workload, and its relationship to the time a judge has at work, may also be related to his ability or willingness to tie a decision into prior decisions through finding and citing case law.…”

Political Influence and Career Judges: An Empirical Analysis of Administrative Review by the Spanish Supreme Court

“…Politics matter, judges strategize, but professional norms that restrict dissent and decry public 21 The extent to which a 5 percent dissent rate is high or low depends on the institutional context. See discussion by Shachar et al (1997) and Eisenberg et al (2011) for the case of Israel, Henderson (2007) for the case of the U.S. Supreme Court, Eisenberg and Miller (2009) for U.S. state supreme courts, Smyth and Narayan (2004) for the Australian High Court, and Songer et al (2011) for the Canadian Supreme Court. 22 On Japan, see Ramseyer andRasmusen (2003, 2006).…”

“…On Canada, see Tate and Sittiwong (), Alarie and Green (), Green and Alarie (), and Songer et al. (). On Germany, see Schneider () and Vanberg ().…”

“…al. (2001),Segal and Spaeth (2002),Goff (2006),Hansford and Springgs (2006), andLax and Cameron (2007).9 On Canada, seeTate and Sittiwong (1989),Alarie and Green (2008),Alarie (2009), andSonger et al (2011). On Germany, seeSchneider (2005) andVanberg (2005).…”

Indeterminacy, Disagreement and the Human Rights Act: An Empirical Study of Litigation in the UK House of Lords and Supreme Court 1997–2017

“…29 Similarly the 'realism' of the standards-based approach has been associated with consumer-welfarism, which in a result-orientated approach feeds in reasonableness to decision making at the cost of predictability. 34 A study of the Supreme Court of Norway found the odds of dissent increase by 79 per cent where a case involves any ECHR issue. These have shown there to be higher rates of dissent in civil liberties cases than in economic cases.…”