A leader in the law

The retirement of Canada’s chief justice is always an occasion to look back on the jurist’s accomplishments and judicial record, applauding sensible changes and wise rulings made by the court over which he or she presided.

But the announcement last week that Beverley McLachlin is stepping down a few months shy of her mandated retirement age of 75 requires something else again.

That’s because McLachlin’s court has produced both a hugely substantial body of legal work and presented an entirely new approach to its deliberations. McLachlin’s leadership injected a breath of fresh air into the stuffiest corner of a sometimes opaque profession.

More than any other chief justice of Canada, she has been willing to speak publicly about being a judge, helping ordinary people understand more about our courts and our legal system. Her court stood up to a bully in the prime minister’s office, delivering defeat after defeat to Stephen Harper’s government when it acted in highhanded ways.

Her gender is almost beside the point. Almost. Put aside for a moment the struggle any woman faced breaking into a male-dominated profession in the 1970s.

The fact that Beverley McLachlin helmed the top court in the land these past 17 years must have been a quiet inspiration to an entire generation of young women considering the practice of law.

It’s a profession where you can make a big difference, and she did that. It’s not hard to imagine thousands of women watching her, thinking they’d like to be like her.

As the Canadian Press reported, she grew up in Pincher Creek, Alta., began practising law in Alberta in 1969, and taught at the UBC law school.

She became a judge in Vancouver in 1981, eventually becoming chief justice of British Columbia’s Supreme Court in 1988.

Less than a year later she was appointed to Canada’s Supreme Court. She became chief justice in 2000.

Her court expanded indigenous rights, gradually entrenching “the notion that governments have a duty to consult and accommodate aboriginal people before making decisions that could affect First Nations,” again according to CP.

The court prevented several attempts by the Harper government to curb the powers of the Senate, ruled on Canada’s prostitution laws and forced the federal government to come up with a law on physician-assisted death.

In short, Beverley MacLachlin made the work of judges more accessible and understandable to Canadians.

And she made that work both relevant and sensitive to some of the most difficult issues people encounter in their lives.

She has been an outstanding chief justice.