I am Getting Sick of Hearing

...about "judges making law from the bench".

The much vaunted - and utterly wasteful "public hearing" interview of a candidate for the Supreme Court of Canada.

Of course, CPC and BQ MPs had to ask the obvious loaded questions around "judicial activism", and the "notwithstanding clause". To Rothstein's credit he was fairly adept at sidestepping these blatantly obvious attempts to politicize the discussion.

I must confess that I am getting heartily sick of the CPC and its kin bleating away about "judicial activism". Unlike the United States, our judiciary is not elected along partisan lines, and for the most part Prime Ministers in the past have tried to select candidates based on their ability to interpret law, not their partisan alignment.

Anyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence and a few minutes to read a ruling or two will soon realize that the court works very hard to interpret Canadian law carefully and consistently. Even when the court stands up and overturns a piece of legislation as inconsistent with the rest of the laws upon which it rests, it is not being "activist" - the reasoning is sound (if obscure in the usual way of lawyers), and they state quite clearly the premises upon which they have based their ruling.

This is NOT making law

The CPC is getting terminally irritating on this topic. Apparently not a one of them has actually bothered to read and understand the work of the Supreme Court - because like a good bunch of sheep, they keep making the same damnably stupid assertions.