Reviews of Friends of the Court
"Ian Brodie has produced an interesting, well-written
book about the relationship between interest groups and the Canadian Supreme
Court. I found it engaging and very informative. I highly recommend it,
particularly to scholars interested in judicial agenda setting, interest group
litigation, and the expansion of judicial power."
Read
Shannon Ishiyama Smithey's review in the Law & Politics Book Review.
"For the last 20 years, judges on the Supreme Court of
Canada have invoked the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a pretence
for usurping the legitimate authority of elected legislators, yet there has
been little public outcry against this gross abuse of the judicial process.
Why is that?"
From
Rory
Leishman's review
in the London Free Press.
Friends
of the Court is the first book-length
study of
interest group litigation in Canada. It traces the Supreme Court of
Canada's relationship with interest groups since the 1970s. After
explaining how the Court was pressured to welcome more interest groups in the
late 1980s, the book then introduces a new theory of political status to
describe how the Court privileges certain groups over others. By
uncovering the role of the state in encouraging and facilitating litigation,
the book challenges the idea that interest group litigation in Canada is a
grassroots phenomenon.