Bureaucratic activism and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms: the Department of Justice and its entry into the centre of government

Abstract: Scholarly works on the impact of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms have largely focused on judicial activism and its effect on the political executive's ability to advance its policy agenda. As such, these works have suggested that a vertical transfer of decision-making authority from the parliamentary arena to the judicial arena has been the primary outcome of Charter review. This article considers the emergence of an alternative form of activism that is a by-product of judicial review on Charter grounds. Specifically, this article suggests that politically generated bureaucratic activism, a process whereby the development of policy within the administrative state has been restructured to incorporate an extensive Charter review of policy proposals, has ensured that the political executive has retained control over its policy agenda and continues to govern from the centre. More importantly, this bureaucratic activism has been under the direction of the Department of Justice and has seen a transformation within both the conceptualization of the centre of government in Canada and our understanding of executive-support agencies. Specifically, because the Department of Justice monopolizes Charter advice within the federal bureaucracy, it has been deployed by the political executive to act as a countervailing source of Charter advice to that of the judiciary and, thus, Justice has entered the centre of government in Canada. This development is largely because the Department of Justice is an important actor that generates policy space for the political executive in the new policy environment by offsetting judicial power. Second, because the Department of Justice has assumed new roles and responsibilities that allow it to control and coordinate the policy activities of line departments, Justice has emerged as an executive-support agency. This latter development is the result of bureaucratic activism, which exists in two distinct forms, reactive and proactive bureaucratic activism, but it is only in the latter phase that Justice has entered the centre of government and emerged as an executive-support agency. Sommaire: Les etudes sur l'effet de la Charte des droits et libertes ont vise avant tout l'activisme judiciaire et son effet sur la capacite des autorites politiques a poursuivre leur agenda de politiques. Selon ces etudes, le transfert vertical d'autorite deisionnelle de l'arene du parlement a l'arene judiciaire serait le principal resultat de la revision de la Charte. Cet article examine la naissance d'une autre forme d'activisme qui decoule de la revision judiciaire a la lumiere de la Charte. Plus precisement, cet article suggere que l'activisme bureaucratique d'origine politique, dans le cadre duquel chaque politique proposee par l'Etat se voit examinee a la lumiere de la Charte, a fait que les autorites politiques tiennent bien en main leur agenda et continuent a gouverner a partir du centre. Ce qui plus est, cet activisme du fonctionnariat, sous la direction du ministere de la Justice, a vu se transformer a la fois le concept de centre de gouvemement au Canada et notre perception des organismes de soutien executif. Puisque le ministere de la Justice a le monopole des avis sur la Charte au sein de l'administration federale, les autorites politiques en ont fait une source-contrepoids en matiere d'avis concemant la Charte pour contrebalancer les avis judiciaires, et ainsi le ministere de la Justice est entre au centre du gouvernement au Canada parce qu'il s'agit la d'un acteur important pour equilibrer le pouvoir judiciaire dans ce domaine. Deuxiemement, le ministere de la Justice est devenu un organisme de soutien du pouvoir executif parce qu'il assume de nouveaux roles et responsabilites lui permettant de controler et de coordonner l'elaboration des politiques des autres ministeres. Ceci resulte de l'activisme du fonctionnariat qui a deux formes distinctes, la forme reactive et la forme proactive, mais ce n'est que cette derniere qui a permis au ministere de la Justice de rejoindre le centre du gouvemement et d'agir en organisme de soutien de l'executif.