The Court unanimously held that to require a federal judge to explain his or her decisions would violate the principle of judicial independence.

At the end of the Court's judgement it was observed that Marshall was largely at fault for his own conviction by misleading the investigation and that "any miscarriage of justice was more apparent than real".

In 1986, the Nova Scotia government established a royal commission, under the Public Inquiries Act, to investigate the handling of the Marshall case.

The judges (Ian M. MacKeigan, Gordon L. S. Hart, Malachi C. Jones, Angus L. Macdonald, and Leonard L. Pace) applied for a declaration that the Commission had no authority to compel them as they were protected by judicial immunity.

The Supreme Court considered two issues: The majority held that the judges could not be compelled and that the direction to the Commission was not ultra vires the province.