Supreme court of Canada changed the law on assisted suicide, and made the text of the ruling available, I snagged it on pdf.
So of course Johnny law loves this stuff, but my eyes are rotating backwards like a slot machine. How is the document structured and what do I ignore to get to the meat of the matter.
I am more interested in the structure of the document, rather than the content.
Declan
The technical term is looking for the ratio decidendi, usually known as the “ratio” which means in latin; the reasons for the decision. Basically, you look at the reason for the conclusion made, in light of the facts of the case.
Some reporters are helpful that the place Headnotes before the judgement summerising what the text says and where, but I know from bitter experience that headnotes are not always accurate. There is no substitute to reading the judgement in detail, although experienced practitioners can easily get the gist by skimming.
It can get problematic when there are multiple judges who write opinions for a certain judgement, and whose reasons might be different in subtle ways.
The opposite of ratio is called the Obiter Dictum reasons which are not not strictly germane to the decision in the case, but are statements of what might have happened is say the facts had been different somehow.
**Preliminary information **
Style of cause: name of court, names of parties and intervenors, file number.
Names of judges, date of decision.
Catchlines (key words and phrases that identify issues – handy if you are diving through a stack of cases).
Headnote – a potted summary of the case (not written by the judges, so not part of the decision).
Authorities: the law referred to by the judges.
History of the case (e.g. on appeal from British Columbia).
Counsel list
Reasons and Decisions
Each judge (or group of judges) sets of his or her reasons (but the Carter decision was unanimous). The decision made by the majority of judges on any given issue trumps the minority on that issue (e.g., Fred and Wilma and Betty trump Barney on issue X, but Wilma and Betty and Barney trump Fred on issue Y).
Your best bet is to read from top to bottom, and skip over that which you do not find helpful.
If all you are after is a quick overview, the headnote may suffice. The headnote can help orient you when there is no table of contents to the reasons and decisions. In the Carter decision, the headnote starts immediately after the catchlines at "Section 241 (b) of the Criminal Code says that everyone who aids or abets a person in committing suicide commits an indictable offence, . . . " and ends with “. . . trial judge was in the best position to determine the role taken by that Attorney General and the extent to which it shared carriage of the case.”
In the Carter decision, the reasons and decisions start with "The following is the judgment delivered by
The Court —"
(And just to be nice, the Court kindly began their reasons and decisions with a hyper-linked table of contents.)
Carter was a unanimous decision. Very often, decisions are not unanimous, and often shared decisions do not share the same reasons. SCC judges tend to consult with each other, so although it takes a bit of time, reading all the reasons provides greater insight into the judges’ collective discussion than just reading the reasons of the majority.
Linkey-poo:
Case name: Carter v. Canada (Attorney General)
Collection: Supreme Court Judgments
Date: 2015-02-06
Neutral citation: 2015 SCC 5
Case number: 35591
Judges: McLachlin, Beverley; LeBel, Louis; Abella, Rosalie Silberman; Rothstein, Marshall; Cromwell, Thomas Albert; Moldaver, Michael J.; Karakatsanis, Andromache; Wagner, Richard; Gascon, Clément
On appeal from: British Columbia
Subjects: Constitutional law and Courts
Notes: SCC Case Information 35591
Thank you ak84 & Muffin
That was most helpful.
Declan
I once heard Justice Binnie, retired judge of the SCC, comment: "Our decisions aren’t Agatha Christie novels, where you start at page 1 and have to read to the end to see how it comes out. Just flip to the part that interests you. "
The SCC headnotes aren’t written by the judges, but they are prepared by the Court staff and usually follow the judgment pretty closely. I rely on the headnotes a lot when I don’t have enough time to read a case in detail.
Actually, about 65 to 70% of SCC judgments are unanimous.
Wow. You don’t see that happening the the United States Supreme Court very often.
According to this article in the NY Times from July 2014, the SCOTUS gave unanimous decisions in about two-thirds of its cases in 2013-2014.
Thats because the judgements which you hear about are the controversial ones. No one outside of the legal community cares much for instance about [I]Gelboim v Bank of America* where the 9-0 judgement holds that the Court of Appeal erred in not treating the District Court’s order as final and therefore appealable.