Originalism does not have much purchase in Canada, apparently, on the grounds that it is unnecessary to conceal the policy making of the courts behind elaborately wrought fig leaves (see A. M. Dodek (2009), 46 S.C.L.R. (2d) at n. 9 for some good leads into scholarly acknowledgements of this reality).
The precedents that are usually said to represent rejections of
originalism do not support this conclusion.
Not exact matches
Although he competently summarizes this theory in his introduction, Ring
does little to distinguish textualism from
originalism in general or from originalist intentionalism in particular.
In some high - profile cases, Scalia followed
originalism even when it led to results that he almost certainly
did not favor as a matter of policy.
These Mertonian norms include: communalism, universalism, disinterestedness,
originalism, and organized skepticism... These norms have been described as follows: «Communalism: Science is public knowledge, freely available to all... Universalism: There are no privileged sources of scientific knowledge... Disinterestedness: Science is
done for its own sake.
Three qualities they
do share: disregard for stare decisis, a preference for bright - line rules and adherence to
originalism.
Ultimately, Sunstein's point is that judges
do not consistently identify as one specific persona, but that the standard theories of constitutional interpretation (
originalism, moralism, etc) can lead to the adoption of one or another of the personae depending on the occasion.
But as the emerging Canadian scholarship that takes
originalism seriously shows, these denunciations
do not tell us the whole story.
In a nutshell, the first paper argues that, once we take stock of the developments in originalist thought (especially in the United States) over the last 30 years — which too many Canadians who reject
originalism out of hand have not
done — we realize that the answer to its title question is «no».
But the Constitution also
does not say anything about
Originalism, Textualism, Living Constitutionalism, social science, canons of construction, precedent, interpretive methodology, history and purpose, or any other of the ordinary methods of judicial analysis.