This comprehensive study is concerned primarily with the fundamental problem of the role of the judiciary in the federal system of Canadian government. The author criticizes previous accounts of the Judicial Committee’s interpretative scheme for the British North American Act because of their neglect of underlying jurisprudential assumptions and their readiness to accept the textual criticisms levelled in the O’Connor Report of 1939; they fail to note the relationship between the jurisprudential and the textual aspects. Professor Browne is convinced that O’Connor’s criticism is as ill founded as the alternative interpretive scheme he proposed, and that the “three-compartment” view represents the most convincing construction of sections 91 and 92 of the Act. He considers debatable the “organic statute” argument widely accepted in the United States and becoming more and more popular in Canada; and supports the premium which English courts have traditionally placed on certainty and stability in the law. Professor Browne concludes that the almost universal criticism in Canada of the Judicial Committee’s construction of the BNA Act is basically misconceived: Canadian jurists should think carefully before following trends set by American courts, for American purposes, in the context of American law, particularly when the repercussions of those trends are not as yet fully appreciated. This discussion will be of special interest for legal, political, and historical studies in this country, the United States, and other Commonwealth countries, especially those which have federal systems and consequently share the same basic problems of the judiciary in such a system.

Consolidated as of April 17, 1982.

Comprehensive, ambitious, and detailed, The Lawmakers will be the definitive work on the evolution of the law of Canadian federalism.

On 18 October 1929, John Sankey, England's reform-minded Lord Chancellor, ruled in the Persons case that women were eligible for appointment to Canada's Senate. Initiated by Edmonton judge Emily Murphy and four other activist women, the Persons case challenged the exclusion of women from Canada's upper house and the idea that the meaning of the constitution could not change with time. The Persons Case considers the case in its political and social context and examines the lives of the key players: Emily Murphy, Nellie McClung, and the other members of the "famous five," the politicians who opposed the appointment of women, the lawyers who argued the case, and the judges who decided it. Robert J. Sharpe and Patricia I. McMahon examine the Persons case as a pivotal moment in the struggle for women's rights and as one of the most important constitutional decisions in Canadian history. Lord Sankey's decision overruled the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment that the courts could not depart from the original intent of the framers of Canada's constitution in 1867. Describing the constitution as a "living tree," the decision led to a reassessment of the nature of the constitution itself. After the Persons case, it could no longer be viewed as fixed and unalterable, but had to be treated as a document that, in the words of Sankey, was in "a continuous process of evolution." The Persons Case is a comprehensive study of this important event, examining the case itself, the ruling of the Privy Council, and the profound affect that it had on women's rights and the constitutional history of Canada.