Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein, Supreme Court of Canada, Address to the American Bar Association, Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice

So, today, I am going to speak to you about justiciability—what government decisions can be subject to review by the courts. In particular, the role of Canadian courts in reviewing the power exercised by the Executive Branch of government. And I am very confident in the accuracy of my remarks today because I have cribbed shamelessly from Professor [David] Mullan’s work.\nThe principle of the Judiciary having the power to review the actions of the Executive or Legislative Branches of government is well established in American, as well as Canadian, law. Where I’ll start is with Marbury v. Madison. As you all know better than I do, there, in 1803, your Supreme Court established the basis for the exercise of judicial review in the United States. Chief Justice Marshall held that your courts could oversee and review the actions of other branches of the government and in doing so declare statutes unconstitutional.\nChief Justice Marshall also dealt with the question of justiciability. He wrote that “the question [of] whether the legality of an act of the head of a department be examinable in a court of justice or not, must always depend on the nature of that act.” He indicated that for some acts, which are political in nature and do not concern individual rights, that the decision of the Executive is conclusive and, in his words “can never be examinable by the Courts.” While for other acts, again in his words, “where a specific duty is assigned by law, and individual rights depend upon the performance of that duty . . . the individual who considers himself injured, has a right to resort to the laws of his country for a remedy.”\nThere are interesting parallels between the American approach and the Canadian approach to justiciability, which I hope will become clear as I further discuss the Canadian attitude towards the subject.

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