TORONTO, May 4, 2004, (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a surprisingly candid admission, a Quebec Chief Justice has admitted that the work of the Canadian judiciary, thanks to the power given them by Pierre Trudeau’s Charter of Rights, has been the work of re-creating a new moral and social order. In an article that appeared in today’s National Post, Quebec Chief Justice, Michel Robert calls the judges, the “new priests” of Canadian society, but admits that their training in law has ill-equipped them to handle the problems of re-writing the moral and social order.
Justice Roberts says that the role of the judiciary has changed “tremendously” since the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. He says, “I think we are very powerful, but we are not always, I think, prepared to play this role.”
Many commentators and watchers of the political scene have been dismayed at the loss of a distinction between the powers of government and those of the courts. “Judicial activism” has become more of a problem for the pro-life, pro-family movement in Canada than in the United States where there are strict constitutional divides, so-called checks and balances, between the judicial and the legislative branches of government.
Justice Roberts was unabashed in admitting the new nature of the un-elected judiciary as one of creating social policy. He admitted that judges are re-defining public policy without public oversight and without reference to traditional moral norms.
He suggested that students before being admitted to law faculties should be required to study the humanities to create some cultural context for the kinds of decisions they would be forced to make in the new legal climate of the Charter. He said, “We have now become an instrument of ‘governance,’ in the wide sense of the word. We are becoming the new priests of civil society, in a way, because we are making decisions about same-sex marriage…about euthanasia and abortion. We are making decisions about many other very controversial issues which have a very large moral content and moral connotation.”
Justice Roberts expressed no discomfort or made no apology or any comment on whether it was appropriate for a small body of un-elected public servants to usurp the role of elected legislatures and re-create society according to arbitrary standards. He said simply that it is happening, “We are defining the fundamental socio-economic values of the society and I don’t think this will change…”
Speaking of the change from parliamentary governance, to one that is essentially constitutional, Justice Roberts spoke directly to the issue of abortion and same sex unions He illustrated that the two issues are linked, “If same-sex marriages are legal and being performed every day, it’s because of three courts’ decisions – BC, Ontario and Quebec. The courts defined what is permitted and what is not permitted in terms of abortion in this country, and the same thing might happen with the same-sex marriage,” question.