Abstract:

The nineteenth-century creation of the Canadian Criminal Code was an important achievement in law reform viewed from the perspective of the cruel and unorganized criminal laws received from England by eighteenth-century British North American colonies. Codification of the criminal law was encouraged by the Canadian judiciary, particularly by William Badgley, Sir James Robert Gowan and Sir Henri-Elz?ar Taschereau. Their participation in the political process leading to codification is examined in this thesis to demonstrate a close relationship between Canadian politicians and some judges in public policy debates. These judges did not confine their judicial duties to A.V. Dicey's model for judges as interpreters and appliers of the law.

Nineteenth-century criminal law codification was influenced by enlightened legal thinkers including Jeremy Bentham who appealed for an organized, systematized criminal code to replace the common law and the disorganized creation of substantive criminal law. Although English judges rejected codification, Canadian judges were inclined to consider reformist argumentation and were aided by English and American codification models. (source: http://gradworks.umi.com/MR/64/MR64452.html