Chief Justice Bora Laskin, of the Supreme Court of Canada, died at the end of March. It was well-known in legal circles that former Chief Justice Laskin was in favour of his court actively addressing political issues that in an earlier era the Supreme Court of Canada would have considered beyond its authority.

Chief Justice Laskin has been criticized for his “Americanization” of the Supreme Court of Canada, as Laskin has supported the U.S. approach of “creative interpretation” of the law. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court was so “creative” that it actually created a right to privacy which it held included a right to abortion on demand.

The present make-up of the Supreme Court of Canada is extremely important to pro-life individuals as there are now three constitutional cases, relating to abortion, working their way up to that Court – the Borowski case, the Morgentaler case and a constitutional case brought by the pro-abortion organization, Canadian Abortion Rights league (CARAL).

At the present time, the Supreme Court of Canada is finely balanced between those who would support a traditional point of view and those who be opposed to it. Consequently, Bora Laskin’s successor will have a tremendous bearing on the outcome of these abortion cases.

Under our present system, appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada are made solely by the Prime Minister. Once the appointment has been made, the judge remains on the Bench until he reaches 75 years of age, and he cannot be removed, except for grave reason. The appointment is absolute and is not subject to confirmation or rejection from any other authority, such as Parliament.

In short, the Prime Minister, if he wishes to assure the implementation of certain policies or the direction the court will take in the future, i.e. traditional as opposed to a liberal point of view, will do so by simply appointing a new judge to the court with the appropriate outlook.

Prime Minister Trudeau ahs stated that, even though he will be retiring on June 16th, he will not wait for his successor to make the appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada, but rather will do so himself.

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