A Litigious Society - or wasting our money

We live in a litigious society - so much so that I wonder if we as individuals still have the capacity to decide what is right or wrong on our own. As opposed to any sort of collective understanding of what is good and right for our society, we habitually go to a judge to decide those issues for us. The belief that a handful of individuals can interpret the law without bias is, or at least it should be, absurd. Unless one lives in a complete vacuum with no awareness of world events, it is inconceivable that anyone, including a judge, would not have some opinions based on his or her individual life experiences. Their bias may not be a factor when interpreting the written law. I am less sure if they can remain completely neutral when debating issues that have not been directly addressed by Parliament.

There may be, on occasion, circumstances or events that occur that could not have been predicted. It, therefore, may be necessary to seek an opinion from a neutral body. Developing a new understanding of First Nation's rights is a good example of the Supreme Court expanding our sense of what is fair. But I am not too sure if we need to keep on asking the same question to higher and higher courts until we get, hopefully, the answer we were hoping for. Take for example Mr. Ford, the premier of Ontario. He thinks that the federally imposed carbon tax is wrong and in fact unconstitutional. He decided that he needed to ask a judge's opinion. However, when the highest court in Ontario said that the federal government was within their rights to impose such a national tax, Mr. Ford has decided to present his case to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Unless there is a matter of law - that is the court in Ontario ignored something that they should not have - why do we need a second opinion? I do not know how much it will cost to pursue this issue. It almost doesn't matter because win or lose, the Canadian taxpayer will foot the bill. In the meantime, the deniers of climate change have even more time to screw the planet.