The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

David Schneiderman

are harder to predict than in the United States.

27

 Songer et al. maintain, never-

theless, that ideology and attitude play a role, particularly in criminal appeals.

28

Even if the strategic model has prompted only a handful of scholarly stud-

ies, it may have more explanatory force.

29

 That is, the Court will issue rea-

sons in some cases that are better explained with reference to the institutional 

environment in which the Court operates in particular, its relationship to the 

political branches, both national and sub-national. Former Prime Minister 

Pierre Trudeau, for instance, explained the Supreme Court’s historic deci-

sion in the Patriation Reference in strategic terms.

30

 The Court ruled that 

Trudeau’s federal government could not unilaterally bring the Constitution 

home from Britain without offending a constitutional convention, that of 

securing “substantial” provincial consent beforehand. The majority’s ruling, 

Trudeau complained, long after he left office, left “little doubt that the major-

ity judges had set their minds to delivering a judgment that would force the 

federal and the provincial governments to seek a compromise.”

31

 Knopff et al. 

claim that in a series of high profile but “jurisprudentially suspect” decisions, 

including the Patriation and Secession References, strategic decision-making 

is the only plausible explanation for their results.

32

 Sauvageau et al. suggest 

that the Supreme Court’s opinion in R. v. Marshall (No. 2)

33

 can only be 

explained as a means of mollifying the indignation that was directed at the 

Court as a consequence of its ruling in Marshall (No. 1), which seemingly 

expanded the scope of Indigenous rights across Atlantic Canada.

34

 Johnson’s 

study of Supreme Court decision-making in the period prior to 1949, at which 

27 

Benjamin  Alarie and Andrew  Green, “Should They All Just Get Along? Judicial Ideology, 

Collegiality and Appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada” (2008) 58 University of New 

Brunswick LJ 73, 74.

28 

Donald R. Songer, Susan W. Johnston, C. L. Ostberg and Matthew W. Wetstein, Law, Ide-

ology, and Collegiality: Judicial Behaviour in the Supreme Court of Canada (Montreal and 

Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012) 152.

29 

See discussion in Emmett Macfarlane, Governing from the Bench: The Supreme Court of Can-

ada and the Judicial Role (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013) 30.

30 

Reference re Resolution to Amend the Constitution of Canada [1981] 1 SCR 753.

31 

Pierre Elliott Trudeau, “Convocation Speech at the Opening of the Bora Laskin Law Library” 

(1991) 41 University of Toronto LJ 295, 302.

32 

Rainer  Knopff,  Dennis  Baker and Sylvia  LeRoy, “Courting Controversy: Strategic Judicial 

Decision Making” in James B. Kelly and Christopher P. Manfredi (eds.), Contested Consti-

tutionalism: Reflections on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Vancouver: UBC 

Press, 2009) 67, referring to Reference re Resolution to Amend the Constitution of Canada (note 

30) and Reference re Secession of Quebec (note 14).

33 

R v. Marshall [1999] 3 SCR 456.

34 

R v. Marshall [1999] 3 S.C.R. 533. See discussion in Florian Sauvageau, David Schneiderman 

and David Taras, The Last Word: Media Coverage of the Supreme Court of Canada (Vancouver: 

UBC Press 2006) 165; Vuk Radmilovic, “A Strategic Approach to Judicial Legitimacy: Supreme  

Court of Canada and the Marshall Case” (2010) 15 Review of Constitutional Studies 77.

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