The coming conservative Supreme Court

The Globe and Mail:

The sudden retirement of two Supreme Court judges has handed Prime Minister Stephen Harper the chance to remake the high court along conservative lines, opening a debate over how to select their successors.

Mr. Justice Ian Binnie is leaving the court just three years short of his mandatory retirement age of 72. But Madam Justice Louise Charron’s decision to exit at 60 has accelerated a process that will see Mr. Harper fundamentally reshape the court by 2015.

Mr. Harper had already stood to replace four judges whose mandatory retirement dates span his term as prime minister – Judge Binnie, Mr. Justice Morris Fish, Mr. Justice Louis LeBel and Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein.

Legal experts now believe Mr. Harper will use his choices to usher in a decades-long course of conservative Charter of Rights rulings and low-key deference to Parliament. That prospect is sure to delight those who view activist judges as anathema and the Charter with suspicion. At the same time, it conjures up a potential nightmare for the political left and civil libertarians who look to the Supreme Court to strike down laws that offend the Charter and to safeguard the rights of the accused.

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