Justice Bertha Wilson

Justice Bertha Wilson PDF Author: Kim Brooks
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774859148
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Bertha Wilson’s appointment as the first female justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1982 capped off a career of firsts. Wilson had been the first woman lawyer and partner at a prominent Toronto law firm and the first woman appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Her death in 2007 provoked reflection on her contributions to the Canadian legal landscape and raised the question, what difference do women judges make? Justice Bertha Wilson examines Wilson’s career through three distinct frames and a wide range of feminist perspectives. The authors evince Wilson’s contributions to the legal system in “Foundations,” examine her role in high-profile decisions in “Controversy,” and assess her credentials as a feminist judge and her impact on education and the profession in “Reflections.” This nuanced portrait of a complex, controversial woman will appeal to lawyers, judges, policy makers, academics, and anyone interested in law and women’s contributions to Canadian society.

Justice Bertha Wilson

Justice Bertha Wilson PDF Author: Kim Brooks
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774859148
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book Here

Book Description
Bertha Wilson’s appointment as the first female justice of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1982 capped off a career of firsts. Wilson had been the first woman lawyer and partner at a prominent Toronto law firm and the first woman appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. Her death in 2007 provoked reflection on her contributions to the Canadian legal landscape and raised the question, what difference do women judges make? Justice Bertha Wilson examines Wilson’s career through three distinct frames and a wide range of feminist perspectives. The authors evince Wilson’s contributions to the legal system in “Foundations,” examine her role in high-profile decisions in “Controversy,” and assess her credentials as a feminist judge and her impact on education and the profession in “Reflections.” This nuanced portrait of a complex, controversial woman will appeal to lawyers, judges, policy makers, academics, and anyone interested in law and women’s contributions to Canadian society.

Judging Bertha Wilson

Judging Bertha Wilson PDF Author: Ellen Anderson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802085825
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description
Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, is an enormously influential and controversial figure in Canadian legal and political history. This engaging, authorized, intellectual biography draws on interviews conducted under the auspices of the Osgoode Society for Legal History, held in Scotland and Canada with Madame Justice Wilson, as well as with her friends, relatives, and colleagues. The biography traces Wilson's story from her birth in Scotland in 1923 to the present. Wilson's contributions to the areas of human rights law and equality jurisprudence are many and well-known. Lesser known are her early days in Scotland and her work as a minister's wife or her post-judicial work on gender equality for the Canadian Bar Association and her contributions to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Through a scrupulous survey of Wilson's judgements, memos, and academic writings (many as yet unpublished), Ellen Anderson shows how Wilson's life and the law were seamlessly integrated in her persistent commitment to a stance of principled contextuality. This stance has had an enduring effect on the evolution of Canadian law and cultural history. Supported with the warmth and generosity of Wilson's numerous personal anecdotes, this work illuminates the life and throught of a woman who has left an extraordinary mark on Canada's legal landscape.

Reflections on the Legacy of Justice Bertha Wilson

Reflections on the Legacy of Justice Bertha Wilson PDF Author: Jamie Cameron
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780433460176
Category : Judges
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description


Two Firsts

Two Firsts PDF Author: Constance Backhouse
Publisher: Second Story Press
ISBN: 1772600946
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Bertha Wilson and Claire L’Heureux-Dubé were the first women judges on the Supreme Court of Canada. Their 1980s judicial appointments delighted feminists and shocked the legal establishment. Polar opposites in background and temperament, the two faced many identical challenges. Constance Backhouse’s compelling narrative explores the sexist roadblocks both women faced in education, law practice, and in the courts. She profiles their different ways of coping, their landmark decisions for women’s rights, and their less stellar records on race. To explore the lives and careers of these two path-breaking women is to venture into a world of legal sexism from a past era. The question becomes, how much of that sexism has been relegated to the bins of history, and how much continues?

Judging Bertha Wilson

Judging Bertha Wilson PDF Author: Ellen Anderson
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442657693
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description
Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, is an enormously influential and controversial figure in Canadian legal and political history. This engaging, authorized, intellectual biography draws on interviews conducted under the auspices of the Osgoode Society for Legal History, held in Scotland and Canada with Madame Justice Wilson, as well as with her friends, relatives, and colleagues. The biography traces Wilson's story from her birth in Scotland in 1923 to the present. Wilson's contributions to the areas of human rights law and equality jurisprudence are many and well-known. Lesser known are her early days in Scotland and her work as a minister's wife or her post-judicial work on gender equality for the Canadian Bar Association and her contributions to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Through a scrupulous survey of Wilson's judgements, memos, and academic writings (many as yet unpublished), Ellen Anderson shows how Wilson's life and the law were seamlessly integrated in her persistent commitment to a stance of principled contextuality. This stance has had an enduring effect on the evolution of Canadian law and cultural history. Supported with the warmth and generosity of Wilson's numerous personal anecdotes, this work illuminates the life and thought of a woman who has left an extraordinary mark on Canada's legal landscape.

Brian Dickson

Brian Dickson PDF Author: Robert J. Sharpe
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802089526
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
Engaging and incisive, Brian Dickson: A Judge's Journey traces Dickson's life from a Depression-era boyhood in Saskatchewan, to the battlefields of Normandy, the boardrooms of corporate Canada and high judicial office, and provides an inside look at the work of the Supreme Court during its most crucial period.

Truth Be Told

Truth Be Told PDF Author: Beverley McLachlin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982104988
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE WRITERS’ TRUST SHAUGHNESSY COHEN PRIZE WINNER OF THE OTTAWA BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION ​Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverley McLachlin offers an intimate and revealing look at her life, from her childhood in the Alberta foothills to her career on the Supreme Court, where she helped to shape the social and moral fabric of the country. As a young girl, Beverley McLachlin’s world was often full of wonder—at the expansive prairie vistas around her, at the stories she discovered in the books at her local library, and at the diverse people who passed through her parents’ door. While her family was poor, their lives were rich in the ways that mattered most. Even at a young age, she had an innate sense of justice, which was reinforced by the lessons her parents taught her: Everyone deserves dignity. All people are equal. Those who work hard reap the rewards. Willful, spirited, and unusually intelligent, she discovered in Pincher Creek an extraordinary tapestry of people and perspectives that informed her worldview going forward. Still, life in the rural Prairies was lonely, and gaining access to education—especially for girls—wasn’t always easy. As a young woman, McLachlin moved to Edmonton to pursue a degree in philosophy. There, she discovered her passion lay not in academia, but in the real world, solving problems directly related to the lives of the people around her. And in the law, she found the tools to do exactly that. She soon realized, though, that the world was not always willing to accept her. In her early years as an articling student and lawyer, she encountered sexism, exclusion, and old boys’ clubs at every turn. And outside the courtroom, personal loss and tragedies struck close to home. Nonetheless, McLachlin was determined to prove her worth, and her love of the law and the pursuit of justice pulled her through the darkest moments. McLachlin’s meteoric rise through the courts soon found her serving on the highest court in the country, becoming the first woman to be named Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. She rapidly distinguished herself as a judge of renown, one who was never afraid to take on morally complex or charged debates. Over the next eighteen years, McLachlin presided over the most prominent cases in the country—involving Charter challenges, same-sex marriage, and euthanasia. One judgment at a time, she laid down a legal legacy that proved that fairness and justice were not luxuries of the powerful but rather obligations owed to each and every one of us. With warmth, honesty, and deep wisdom, McLachlin invites us into her legal and personal life—into the hopes and doubts, the triumphs and losses on and off the bench. Through it all, her constant faith in justice remained her true north. In an age of division and uncertainty, McLachlin’s memoir is a reminder that justice and the rule of law remain our best hope for a progressive and bright future.

Discours Prononces Par L'Honorable Bertha Wilson, 1976-1991

Discours Prononces Par L'Honorable Bertha Wilson, 1976-1991 PDF Author: Bertha Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 767

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Book Description


Judicial Power and Canadian Democracy

Judicial Power and Canadian Democracy PDF Author: Paul Howe
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 9780773522251
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Chiefly papers originally presented at Guiding the Rule of Law into the 21st Century, a conference held Apr. 16-17, 1999 at the University of Ottawa.

Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice

Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice PDF Author: Kent Roach
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773556451
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
In August 2016 Colten Boushie, a twenty-two-year-old Cree man from Red Pheasant First Nation, was fatally shot on a Saskatchewan farm by white farmer Gerald Stanley. In a trial that bitterly divided Canadians, Stanley was acquitted of both murder and manslaughter by a jury in Battleford with no visible Indigenous representation. In Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice Kent Roach critically reconstructs the Gerald Stanley/Colten Boushie case to examine how it may be a miscarriage of justice. Roach provides historical, legal, political, and sociological background to the case including misunderstandings over crime when Treaty 6 was negotiated, the 1885 hanging of eight Indigenous men at Fort Battleford, the role of the RCMP, prior litigation over Indigenous underrepresentation on juries, and the racially charged debate about defence of property and rural crime. Drawing on both trial transcripts and research on miscarriages of justice, Roach looks at jury selection, the controversial “hang fire” defence, how the credibility and beliefs of Indigenous witnesses were challenged on the stand, and Gerald Stanley's implicit appeals to self-defence and defence of property, as well as the decision not to appeal the acquittal. Concluding his study, Roach asks whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's controversial call to “do better” is possible, given similar cases since Stanley's, the difficulty of reforming the jury or the RCMP, and the combination of Indigenous underrepresentation on juries and overrepresentation among those victimized and accused of crimes. Informed and timely, Canadian Justice, Indigenous Injustice is a searing account of one case that provides valuable insight into criminal justice, racism, and the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Canada.