Judicial elections, democratic appointment (e.g., senate confirmation), and the Missouri Plan (a/k/a "merit selection")

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Monday, July 14, 2014

Canadian Judicial Selection

Ottawa Law Professor Rosemary Cairns Way's paper is entitled Deliberate Disregard: Judicial Appointments Under the Harper Government.  The abstract reads:

This essay examines the apparent disregard of diversity in appointments by the federal government to the Canadian bench. It begins with an examination of the principal academic arguments supporting the claim that Canadians are entitled to a representative bench. After explaining the current federal appointments process, I examine patterns in three identity characteristics of recent appointees (gender, racialization, and professional experience). These patterns suggest, at the least, a failure to pay attention to, and at the most, a deliberate disregard of diversity which is, in my view, inconsistent with constitutional anti-discrimination norms, as well as with both the written and unwritten constitutional guarantee of an independent and impartial judiciary.

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