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The court is clearly split badly on the law-and-order agenda. It seems to be Binnie, LeBel, Fish, and Abella against the other five. Unfortunately, the majority is on the wrong side of good sense and civil liberty. I think Justice Ian Binnie, dissenting, got it right. Using what Kirk Makin of The Globe and Mail called a "blunt, near-mocking tone," Binnie said a detainee is entitled to further advice from counsel during a police interview if, objectively speaking, he reasonably needs legal assistance, and the need is or should be apparent to the police. "It cannot be correct to limit the role of defence counsel under s. 10(b) . . . to urge silence regardless of what may emerge in the course of the interrogation . . . this much could be accomplished by a recorded message: You have reached counsel. Keep your mouth shut. Press one to repeat this message." Justices Louis LeBel and Morris Fish dissented as well, giving separate reasons, with Justice Rosalie Abella con- curring. Their view of the McLachlin/Charron reasoning: "Their conclusion tends to erode the very basic principles of Canadian criminal law, particularly the protection against self-incrimination and the presumption of inno- cence." The court is clearly split badly on the law-and-order agenda. It seems to be Binnie, LeBel, Fish, and Abella against the other five. Unfortunately, the majority is on the wrong side of good sense and civil liberty. We should devoutly wish for a reconsideration of Sinclair as soon as possible. W hat's with the Supreme Court's mysterious shrinking caseload? The final number of judgments in 2010 is not certain at the time of writing, but it looks as if it will hit a record low for modern times, around 55 or so. The num- ber of leaves to appeal granted by the court also decreased dramatically; the percentage of successful applications will likely be under 10 per cent, the lowest ever. That suggests the number of decisions in 2011 could be even fewer than in the year just passed. The annual number of judgments has been decreasing steadily for some time. In 1990, there were 144; in 2007, only 58. In 2009, the court released 70 judgments. The Supreme Court of the United States has experienced a similar trend. There has been considerable speculation about why this is happening. Some have argued that neither court is as important as some people think, and each is becoming less important all the time. The big decisions, so the argument goes, are made elsewhere. Others have said that Canadian Supreme Court judges have become lazy. I don't agree with either hypothesis. Whatever the explanation, something strange is going on. And citizens are starting to mutter about access to jus- tice being denied at the Supreme Court of Canada. H ere's a comforting thing. Some of the Supreme Court judges seem pretty tech savvy. First prize goes to Justice Morris Fish, who displayed a sophisticated understanding of computer technology in his March 2010 R. v. Morelli majority judgment. Fish was quite comfortable, for example, in writing: "In my view, merely viewing in a Web browser an image stored in a remote location on the Internet does not establish the level of control necessary to find possession. Possession of illegal images requires possession of the underlying data files in some way." Contrast this with U.S. Supreme Court justices. Chief Justice John Roberts, in City of Ontario v. Quon last April, wondered about how text messaging worked. "I thought, you know, you push a button; it goes right to the other thing," he said. Justice Antonin Scalia said: "You mean it doesn't go right to the other thing?" Roberts also wondered what the difference was between e-mail and a pager. had previously worked for the prime minister at 24 Sussex Drive. (McLachlin had checked first with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to make sure he was OK with Bartsch moving.) A story by reporter Janice Tibbets quoted Bartsch as saying the judges love fish, and that he had also tried out North African, Thai, and Indian flavours: "Now it's getting into fall so I'm starting to get more rustic. . . . There will be little tangines and stews and things like that. . . . They are open to all kinds of different things." Welcome 2011! It's good to know, that whatever else happens, our Supreme Court judges will be well-fed. F Philip Slayton has been dean of a law school and senior partner of a major Canadian law firm. His latest book, Mighty Judgment: How the Supreme Court of Canada Runs Your Life, will be released in April 2011. Visit him online at philipslayton.com. www.CANADIAN Lawyermag.com JAN UARY 2011 17 inally, there's the food. In September, it was announced that the Supreme Court had hired Oliver Bartsch as its chef. Bartsch JACqUI OAklEy