| Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dube of the Supreme Court of Canada has advocated that judicial notice and the conceptualizations of Monahan and Walker be used more extensively in Family Law to allow judges to access social science. A review of the nature of family law, judicial discretion, traditional means for courts to secure social science, and the writing of Monahan and Walker was undertaken. A survey of judges and lawyers concerning the ways in which judges secure and use social science was conducted. Judges, in the view of the author, do a less than adequate job of identifying the source of, the manner of, evaluation of, and their intended use of, social science. These issues should be addressed directly, not through an expansion of the use of judicial notice that lacks due process protection, nor adoption of parts but not all of the conceptualizations of Monahan and Walker. |
