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Critics of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: The New Orthodoxy and an Alternative Explanation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Frederick Vaughan
Frederick Vaughan
Affiliation:
University of Guelph
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Abstract

By way of a critical assessment of the leading authorities on the critics of the Judicial Committee, this article argues that the proper appreciation of what the law lords did to the terms of the BNA Act can be found in an understanding of their perception of their unique function. Supporters of the Judicial Committee's decentralization of the terms of the British North America Act have tended to rely on either G. P. Browne's book on the subject or Alan Cairns's article in this Journal (4 [1971], 301–45). The purpose of this article is to challenge those authorities and offer an alternative explanation.

Résumé

En s'interrogeant sur le bien-fondé des commentaires que les auteurs les mieux renseignés ont faits au sujet du Comité judiciaire du Conseil privé britannique. cet article cherche à situer dans son juste contexte l'attitude des lords à l'égard de l'Acte de l'Amérique du Nord britannique. Pour sa part, l'auteur estime qu'il faut avant tout comprendre la perception que les membres du Comité judiciaire ont de leur propre fonction. Cette perspective entraíne donc une remise en question des interprétations traditionnelles, notamment celles des auteurs qui, s'appuyant sur l'ouvrage de G. P. Browne ou sur l'article d'Alan Cairns dans cette Revue en 1971, se sont faits les partisans des positions décentralisatrices du Comité judiciaire.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 495 - 519
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1986

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References

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