Enforcing the Charter: The Supervisory Role of Superior Courts and the Responsibility of Legislatures for Remedial Systems

In this paper, the author examines the implications of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Doucet-Boudreau v. Nova Scotia (Minister of Education) on a superior court’s jurisdiction to supervise government compliance with remedial orders in constitutional litigation. Drawing parallels between constitutionally-based judicial supervision and the traditional remedies judges exercise in equity, the author argues that the former is a natural extension of the latter types of equitable remedies and that the apparent stark division between the majority and minority decisions in the Supreme Court can be more readily explained by procedural preferences and the degree of deference each would afford the governmental decision-making body