LEGAL TRAILBLAZER TO HANG UP ROBES
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin will retire in December, capping a remarkable career and giving Trudeau a chance to shape top court’s future,
OTTAWA— Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin is bringing down the gavel on a 36-year judicial career that spanned 28 years on the top court — 17 of them as the country’s first female, and longestserving, chief justice.
The legal trailblazer will retire effective Dec. 15, nine months before she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 although she may sign off on outstanding rulings for another six months after she leaves the bench.
It gives the government time to fill a seat traditionally reserved for a judge from British Columbia and to replace her as chief justice — a chance for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shape the court for generations to come.
By convention, the post has alternated between the most senior anglophone and francophone member of the bench — and it would ordinari- ly be the turn of Justice Richard Wagner, appointed by Stephen Harper.
But that convention was ditched by Pierre Elliott Trudeau in two of his Supreme Court appointments and may well be set aside by his son if the government opts to make a “major statement on its agenda of inclusion and diversity,” said McGill University political science professor Chris Manfredi.
McLachlin’s departure leaves a huge gap at the top of the judicial branch of government. Her legacy includes seminal judgments on the country’s constitutional framework, charter rights like free speech and security of the person, and Indigenous law.
In a written statement Trudeau thanked McLachlin for her long and dedicated service, and said her judicial accomplishments are “unparalleled in Canadian history” and “reach into every part of our law. Canadians owe her an immense debt.”
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke to McLachlin Monday morning and told reporters she appreciated her as “a progressive force in terms of Indigenous peoples and advancement of reconciliation and recognition.”
“On the Supreme Court she has helped us as a country define and advance and develop the law and our Constitution, and has made so many seminal judgments that have further defined who we are as Canadians.”
McLachlin transformed the high court into a modern institution at a time when it was under huge political pressure after early charter rulings left conservative lawmakers with buyer’s remorse.
She became the target of Conservative critics for leading a judicially “activist” bench that thwarted the will of Parliament. McLachlin coolly rejected that label and countered it was elected legislators who tasked judges with breathing life into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The 1982 Constitution gave courts the ability to overturn laws that limited rights in an unreasonable and unjustifiable way.
Toronto criminal defence lawyer Frank Addario, a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said she is “the epitome of a balanced judge. She is the intellectual leader of a measured approach to civil liberties and compassion in relation to individuals.”
McLachlin was appointed by former prime minister Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney in 1989 and named chief justice by Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien. She advanced collegial relations among Type A judges and lawyers where cliques had often formed, pushing for consensus and clearer statements of Canadian law. Under her administration, backlogs cleared, and the court made leaps in public outreach, with she and other judges travelling internationally, delivering speeches, doing interviews and joining social media.
Tough on litigators who prattle on, famously reserved in person, McLachlin has a plain-speaking, often wry style in court. Yet those who know her speak of her easy laugh.
“She’s very charismatic in that environment,” said McGill University law professor Daniel Jutras.
McLachlin outlasted 19 of her judicial peers in her 28 years on the top court.
In the announcement of her retirement, McLachlin said, “It has been a great privilege to serve as a justice of the court, and later its chief justice, for so many years. I have had the good fortune of working with several generations of Canada’s finest judges and best lawyers. I have enjoyed the work and the people I have worked with enormously.”