Canadians like to think of our judiciary as a meritocracy, in the same manner we have a naïve faith that oncoming motorists will stay on their side of the white line. Of course, car wrecks happen all the time.
Professor Dale Brawn examines who’s behind the wheel in Canadian courts. The result is a beautifully-researched and entertaining study of 80 years of judicial appointments in a single province, Manitoba, from 1870 to 1950. Brawn chooses his subject well; Manitoba was for years the lone outpost of the judiciary on the Prairie frontier.
Judges were by contrast brilliant and mediocre; studious and alcoholic; a grab bag of “pretty fair lawyers” and political fixers. One appointee was rated as having “but a small amount of brains and knows absolutely no law.”