Chief justice McLachlin, 74, leaving top court
OTTAWA — Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin is stepping down from the Supreme Court of Canada in December after 28 years on the court, including almost 18 years as chief.
McLachlin, 74, is the first woman to hold the top job on the high court and is also Canada’s longestserving chief justice. She will leave Dec. 15, about nine months before her legally mandated retirement on her 75th birthday in September 2018.
She was sworn in as a justice of the Supreme Court in 1989 and was appointed chief justice 11 years later.
Her time at the court has seen a number of groundbreaking decisions, including a series of rulings that strengthened indigenous rights as the justices gradually entrenched the notion that governments have a duty to consult and accommodate aboriginal people before making decisions that could affect First Nations.
In recent years, the court ruled on the country’s prostitution laws and the concept of physician assistance in dying.
McLachlin and the Supreme Court delivered a series of stinging rebukes to the government of former prime minister Stephen Harper.
The court ruled the Harper government could not use Parliament alone to impose Senate term limits, allow consultative elections for senatorial candidates or abolish the upper chamber. The justices later supported Vancouver’s controversial Insite safe-injection facility and overturned a Conservative sentencing law that was part of the government’s law-and-order regime.
The court also shot down Harper’s appointment of Marc Nadon of the Federal Court to its ranks, saying he didn’t meet the criteria. The ruling said that Quebec appointments to the court had to come from the sitting judges on the Quebec Court of Appeal or Superior Court, or from the Quebec bar.
“Chief Justice McLachlin’s judicial accomplishments are unparalleled in Canadian history,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday in response to her retirement announcement. “She has been a judicial leader and trailblazer for almost four decades. She is one of Canada’s very finest jurists.
“After 28 years at the Supreme Court of Canada, her contributions reach into every part of our law.”