Judicial amendment of the constitution

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the conceptual distinction between judicial interpretation and judicial amendment. It argues that there are contexts where courts can depart so far from the constitutional text, the intent or purposes of relevant constitutional provisions, and the broad consensus within the political community about what the constitution does and does not contemplate, that they engage in effective amendment of the constitution. In these instances, judicial reasoning acts in defiance of, or with disregard for, codified constitutional amending procedures. The distinction between judicial amendment and judicial interpretation is not a clear or easy one. An analysis of its invocation in the context of the United States, Canada, and Australia finds that the concept of judicial amendment is often employed in a way that threatens to merely replicate extant debates over competing theories of constitutional interpretation. At a conceptual level then, the distinction between judicial amendment and interpretation requires a high threshold. The article identifies a set of factors to establish when courts are no longer engaged in mere interpretation but are fundamentally altering the constitution itself. It then applies those factors to an analysis of three cases of judicial amendment in Canada and India.