Both New Zealand and the United Kingdom challenge assumptions about how a bill of rights functions. Their parliamentary bills of rights constrain judicial review and also look to parliament to play a rights-protecting role. This arises from the requirement to inform parliament if legislative bills are not compatible with rights. But are these bills of rights operating in this proactive manner? Are governments encountering significantly stronger pressures to ensure legislation complies with rights? Are these bills of rights resulting in more reasoned deliberations in parliament about the justification of legislation from a rights perspective? Through extensive interviews with public officials and analysis of parliamentary debates where questions of compliance with rights arise (prisoner voting, parole and sentencing policy, counter-terrorism legislation, and same-sex marriage), this book argues that a serious gap exists between the promise of these bills of rights and the institutional variables that influence how these parliaments function.

Both New Zealand and the United Kingdom challenge assumptions about how a bill of rights functions. Their parliamentary bills of rights constrain judicial review and also look to parliament to play a rights-protecting role. This arises from the requirement to inform parliament if legislative bills are not compatible with rights. But are these bills of rights operating in this proactive manner? Are governments encountering significantly stronger pressures to ensure legislation complies with rights? Are these bills of rights resulting in more reasoned deliberations in parliament about the justification of legislation from a rights perspective? Through extensive interviews with public officials and analysis of parliamentary debates where questions of compliance with rights arise (prisoner voting, parole and sentencing policy, counter-terrorism legislation, and same-sex marriage), this book argues that a serious gap exists between the promise of these bills of rights and the institutional variables that influence how these parliaments function.

The introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 was accompanied by much fanfare and public debate. This book does not celebrate the Charter; rather it offers a critique by distinguished scholars of law and political science of its effect on democracy, judicial power, and the place of Quebec and Aboriginal peoples twenty-five years later. By employing diverse methodological approaches, contributors shift the focus of debate from the Charter's appropriateness to its impact - for better or worse - on political institutions, public policy, and conceptions of citizenship in the Canadian federation.

In Governing with the Charter, James Kelly clearly demonstrates that our current democratic deficit is not the result of the Supreme Court’s judicial activism. On the contrary, an activist framers’ intent surrounds the Charter, and the Supreme Court has simply, and appropriately, responded to this new constitutional environment. While the Supreme Court is admittedly a political actor, it is not the sole interpreter of the Charter, as the court, the cabinet, and bureaucracy all respond to the document, which has ensured the proper functioning of constitutional supremacy in Canada. Kelly analyzes the parliamentary hearings on the Charter and also draws from interviews with public servants, senators, and members of parliament actively involved in appraising legislation to ensure that it is consistent with the Charter. He concludes that the principal institutional outcome of the Charter has been a marginalization of Parliament and that this is due to the Prime Minister’s decision on how to govern with the Charter.

Since the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, the question of judicial power and its relationship to parliamentary democracy has been an important issue in Canadian politics. Some critics, suspicious of the activism of unelected and unaccountable judges sponsoring an undemocratic rights revolution, view the increased power of the Supreme Court as a direct challenge to Parliament. But has parliamentary democracy been weakened by judicial responses to the Charter? Governing with the Charter challenges the position that our current democratic deficit is the result of the Supreme Court's judicial activism. First of all, through an analysis of the parliamentary hearings on the Charter that took place more than two decades ago, Kelly contends that an activist framers' intent surrounds the Charter and that the court has simply, and appropriately, responded to this new constitutional environment. Moreover, the Supreme Court is not the sole interpreter of this document: the cabinet and bureaucracy also play significant roles in governing with the Charter. marginalization of Parliament, this has not resulted through the political choices of the Supreme Court. Rather, Kelly argues, a deepening of prime-ministerial government and a general weakening of parliamentary democracy have occurred because of the prime minister's decision on how to govern with the Charter. A significant contribution to law and society studies, Governing with the Charter will be widely read by political scientists, legal scholars, parliamentarians, public servants, and students of the machinery of government.