Selecting Appeals for Judicial Review in Canada: A Replication and Multivariate Test of American Hypotheses

Comparative research of agenda setting by high courts in other countries that replicates American research on the certiorari process is rare. This is the first study of the leave to appeal process in the Supreme Court of Canada. It also is the first multivariate model that operationalizes the jurisprudential indicia Perry identified as important when the U.S. Supreme Court "decides to decide." This study finds that endogenous institutional norms in Canada produce a decentralized process in which legal cues or signals are emphasized but in diverse and varied ways. Institutional differences across high courts therefore affect the generalizability of American findings.