Politics
Wednesday June 9, 2004
Conservative Leader Harper Would Assert Authority of Parliament Over Supreme Court
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VICTORIA, June 9, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - During a campaign stop in British Columbia yesterday, Conservative leader Stephen Harper said that he would seek to reign in the power and role of Supreme Court justices charging that the Canadian high court has over-stepped its bounds in recent years. Harper said, "My view is that the role of the court is to apply the Charter to protect the rights laid out in the Charter. The role of the court is not to invent rights that are not in the Charter. The role of the court is not to ignore the rights that are in the Charter."
He vowed to appoint only judges who would defer to Parliament: "The idea of adjudicated rights is an important development in our political system. It's one that I support in principle. But to make it work, we've got to make sure that we have courts that apply the law, not courts that apply their own criteria."
Earlier this week, Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin endorsed the idea of the Supreme Court "protecting" the rights of women and minorities, even without Parliament acting.
Attacking the judicial activism of the Supreme Court, Harper specifically cited decisions extending voting rights to prisoners while curtailing the rights of third-party spending during elections. "I'm concerned when I see courts that can find voting rights for prisoners, but can't find a right for ordinary citizens outside of political parties to express their opinions during election campaigns," he said.
In recent years, pro-life, pro-family and religious groups have criticized the court's judicial activism on issues relating to the rights of the unborn, the expansion of gay rights and the infringement of religious freedom. As well, in most of these cases the federal government funded these challenges to its own laws with money funneled through the Liberal created Court Challenges Program.
Harper said he would restore the Supreme Court to its historic role as the interpreter of law, not the maker of law, saying, "The role of the court is not to invent rights that are not in the Charter." While not committing himself to such a policy, Harper said that ideally, an elected Senate would vet judicial appointments picked from a list provided by the provinces. He promised that in the meantime, a "parliamentary committee approach" would give MPs a say in judicial appointments.
For the Toronto Star's coverage of Stephen Harper's Supreme Court announcement: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_T...
For CTV coverage of Paul Martin's position on abortion and same-sex "marriage": http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1086709841056_82119041/?hub=...
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