Behind Closed Doors

In an era where government transparency and accountability are considered fundamental values, does Cabinet secrecy still have a place? The legal and political rules that protect the confidentiality of collective decision-making at the highest level of the state executive have come under increasing scrutiny in Canada.

Behind Closed Doors: The Law and Politics of Cabinet Secrecy is the first comprehensive work on this controversial doctrine. Yan Campagnolo defends the practice of Cabinet secrecy by demonstrating that it is essential to the proper functioning of responsible government, while finding that the statutory provisions that support secrecy at the federal level are excessively broad and possibly unconstitutional.

Employing a comparative analysis of the rules that apply provincially in Canada and in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, this meticulous work proposes a feasible solution: specific reforms that would achieve a better balance between transparency and confidentiality.

Yan Campagnolo is an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and a member of the Ontario Bar. He is the author of Le secret ministériel: Théorie et pratique and, with Adam Dodek, La Constitution canadienne, as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles in French and English. He has worked as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada and as counsel for the Privy Council Office.

The scholarship in Behind Closed Doors is of very top quality. There is no doubt that it will become a reference work in the field.

Suzanne Comtois, professor, Faculty of Law, Université de Sherbrooke:

Yan Campagnolo’s excellent book is rigorous, learned, very well written, clear, and to the point. It is a must-read for scholars as well as public officials and judges.

Mel Cappe, professor, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto:

As a former clerk of the Privy Council, I am delighted to see a book that so comprehensively and rigorously explores the ins and outs of the doctrine of Cabinet secrecy in a contemporary context.