Justices of the
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...
have the option of releasing reasons for a unanimous decision
anonymously
Anonymity describes situations where the acting person's identity is unknown. Some writers have argued that namelessness, though technically correct, does not capture what is more centrally at stake in contexts of anonymity. The important idea he ...
by simply attributing the judgment to "The Court". The practice began around 1979 by
Chief Justice Laskin, borrowing from the
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
practice of anonymizing certain unanimous decisions. Unlike in the US, which uses it primarily for uncontroversial cases, in Canada, it is used almost always for important and controversial cases.
It has been suggested that the practice has been used to give greater authority to the decision by having the entire Court speak as a single voice.
Peter McCormick, a professor of political science at the
University of Lethbridge
, mottoeng = ''Let there be light''
, type = Public
, established =
, academic_affiliations = Universities Canada
, endowment = $73 million (2019)
, chancellor = Charles Weasel ...
who studies Canada's appellate courts, calls these 'per coram decision," but his terminology is not in general use. McCormick states that there were 9 reported per coram decisions prior to Bora Laskin's term as Chief Justice, 15 reported per coram decisions under Laskin's Chief Justiceship, and 51 reported per coram decisions under Dickson's Chief Justiceship.
[McCormick, Peter. "The Supervisory Role of the Supreme Court of Canada: Analysis of Appeals from Provincial Courts of Appeal, 1949-1990" (1992), 3(2d) Supreme Court Law Review 1, at p. 27.]
List
The following is a list of anonymous decisions that are attributed to "The Court":
See also
*
Per curiam decision
In law, a ''per curiam'' decision (or opinion) is a ruling issued by an appellate court of multiple judges in which the decision rendered is made by the court (or at least, a majority of the court) acting collectively (and typically, though no ...
References
{{Supreme Court of Canada
Works published anonymously
Supreme Court of Canada
Canadian case law
Legal history of Canada
Supreme court case law by country