Background
The decision arose from cases from four different provinces, namely Provincial Court Judges’ Assn. of New Brunswick v. New Brunswick (Minister of Justice) from New Brunswick, Ontario Judges’ Assn. v. Ontario (Management Board) from Ontario, Bodner v. Alberta from Alberta, and Conférence des juges du Québec v. Quebec (Attorney General); Minc v. Quebec (Attorney General) from Quebec. Each case involved interpretation of how to properly pay provincial court judges. The cases arose following the Provincial Judges Reference, which found that in order to ensure salaries are free of political manipulation, independent salary commissions should recommend salaries and governments could deviate from recommendations only for rational reasons. This finding was grounded in principles found in the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867. As the Supreme Court admitted in its 2005 decision, in attempting to ease relations between courts and government, "The Reference has not provided the anticipated solution, and more is needed."
Specifically, in each of the four cases there were disputes as to what reasons for not following recommendations were rational. Since it was found commissions should have a "meaningful effect" on remuneration, some courts suggested that the recommendations must be followed. In Alberta, the courts won their case against the government before the Alberta Court of Appeal. The government of Alberta, in not accepting some of the recommendations, noted its economic responsibilities and that compared to other salaries, the recommended judicial salaries were very large. The Court of Appeal, conversely, thought that the requirement that government reasons be rational should be a very difficult test to pass and only "extraordinary circumstances" could justify not following recommendations. This was based on the fact that the 1997 Reference had mentioned the Anti-Inflation Reference of 1976, which dealt with the definition of economic emergencies.
Read more about this topic: Provincial Court Judges' Assn. Of New Brunswick V. New Brunswick (Minister Of Justice)
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