Marie-Claire Belleau

Judging gender: difference and dissent at the Supreme Court of Canada

Over 25 years ago, Justice Bertha Wilson asked “Will women judges really make a difference?” Taking up her question, we consider the place of difference in gender and judging. Our focus is on those ‘differences of opinion’ between judges that take the form of written and published judicial dissent. We present and interrogate recent statistics about practices of dissent on the Supreme Court of Canada in relation to gender. The statistics are provocative, but do not provide straightforward answers about gender and judging. They do, however, pose new questions, and suggest the importance of better theorizing and exploring the space of dissent.

L'intersectionnalité: Feminisms in a Divided World; Québec-Canada

If you found the first edition of Moral Understandings worthwhile, I think you’ll find the second edition, as a refresher with new additions, to be a worthy read as well. The chapters are self-contained, but together they form a rich whole. I recommend it to any philosopher with an interest in feminist ethics, meta-ethics, and twentieth-century normative ethics and believe it would serve well as required reading in an advanced seminar in any of these topics. ❙

Ten theses on dissent

Belleau and Johnson respond to the three articles in the Focus Feature. Agreeing with the general proposition that dissent matters, that it is valuable, and that it strengthens our system of law, they share ten theses on dissent. These theses touch on: dissent as a structural feature of our system; the linking of emotion and reason in the language of dissent; the articulation of tensions between principle and practice across different categories of dissent; the variable emergence of dissent across different legal topics; the need for attention to both heightened dissent and its absence; the impact of judicial identity on dissent; dissent as a (sometimes invisible) process rather than only a product; different currents with respect to dissenting practice at the trial, appellate, and Supreme Court levels; dissent as legal pedagogy; the role of the reader of dissent; and the place of dissent in nourishing the legal imaginary. In brief, they argue that lawyers, law professors, and the public more generally ought to attend to judicial dissent in order to engage with the ways that our system of justice operates, renews itself, and changes.

Pouvoir judiciaire et codification : perspective historique

L’article relate l’histoire du Livre préliminaire du Code de Napoléon, lequel témoignait de la philosophie des codificateurs au sujet de la codification et de la fonction judiciaire. Avant son adoption, le projet du Code de Napoléon avait été distribué aux juges des tribunaux d’appel et du Tribunal de cassation pour commentaires, lesquels mettaient en relief les divergences fondamentales qui séparaient les juges et les codificateurs. Les juges idéalisaient l’effet du Code de Napoléon, alors que les codificateurs en mesuraient les limites et les insuffisances. Cependant, quand il s’agissait de l’expression de la loi, les juges demandaient l’élimination des principes abstraits et généraux proposés par les codificateurs et réclamaient des dispositions concrètes et précises. De plus, pour les codificateurs, la jurisprudence formait une science, alors que pour les tribunaux, elle constituait une véritable plaie. Résultat du débat : un Projet de Livre préliminaire de 39 dispositions réduit à un Titre préliminaire qui n’en compte plus que six.