Decision Making in the Canadian Supreme Court: Extending the Personal Attributes Model Across Nations

Theory-based personal attributes models of the civil rights and liberties and economics decision making of the Canadian Supreme Court justices serving from 1949-1985 are developed from Lipset and Rokkan's (1967) approach to explaining mass political behavior. The models show both behaviors to be influenced by Quebec/non-Quebec regional origins and religious affiliation, political party, being appointed by the last laissez faire Liberal Prime Minister, King, and having judicial and political experience. The models are reasonably potent, statistically. Their most important attributes capture crucial dimensions in contemporary Canadian politics, region, and party, and also have implications for the cross-national study of judicial behavior.