Subseries 9 - Judges

2.4 m of textual records

In late 1992, I was asked by the Canadian Judicial Council to do a study of judicial independence and accountability in Canada. The Council is a statutory body composed of all of the superior court chief justices in Canada (file 3). Bob Sharpe and Jim McPherson, then the deans of law at Toronto and Osgoode and who had each been the executive officer of the Chief Justice of Canada, played a role in designing the study (file 6). The Council wanted a follow-up to the Deschênes Report on the administration of the courts which Chief Justice Allan McEachern of British Columbia had attempted to write, but hadn’t made very much progress (file 3). They were also concerned with attacks on the independence of the judiciary and concern about the disciplinary process. Others had other reasons for supporting the study.

I agreed to do a study covering these and other areas that in my view naturally came within the concept of judicial independence and accountability, such as financial security and appointments. A contract was entered into with the Government in June 1993 (file 4). Over the next year there were numerous drafts of the research outline (file 5).

There was extensive correspondence with the Council (files 6-19), its executive director, Jeannie Thomas (files 124-126), and the four members selected by the Council’s Judicial Independence Committee to act as a liaison with me. These four were Richard Scott, the chief justice of Manitoba (files 117-119), Allan McEachern, the chief justice of British Columbia (files 112-113), Roy McMurtry, the then chief justice of the trial division in Ontario (later the chief justice of Ontario) (file 114), and Pierre Michaud, the then associate chief justice of the trial division in Quebec (later the chief justice of Quebec). There were a number of meetings with the liaison group as well as with the Judicial Independence Committee of Council. A draft of the report was distributed to the Council members and others for their comments. In March 1995 I took part in their annual seminar where my draft was discussed (file 13).

Over the course of the project I had a number of summer research assistants. Four outstanding students who did extensive work with me were particularly helpful: Jeffrey Piercey, Poonam Puri, Caroline Ursulak, and Gillian Roberts (files 21-23).

There was consultation with many organisations, such as the Canadian Judges Conference, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Federation of Law Societies (files 26-31). There was also close co-operation with the federal Department of Justice and the deputy ministers across the country (files 32-33). I went to each province and territory and met with government officials, lawyers, academics, and judges (files 34-78). I also spent a week in England meeting with judges, government officials, lawyers, and academics (files 79-86). The extensive correspondence with individuals is contained in specific files (files 90-133), as well as in the files relating to the particular province or court.

Only a very small portion of my research has been kept. The bibliography of materials collected by itself amounted to well over 50 pages (file 139). Parts of some files of particular interest are, however, included in the collection (files 134-138). Box 7 contains my hand-written drafts of the various sections of the report (files 140-153) and Boxes 8 and 9 contain the specific endnote references (files 154-173).

The report was published by the government in English and French in August 1995 (file 174, 179-80). There was extensive media coverage of the report (files 182-88). I had given a number of talks on the subject prior to the publication of the report and a number after its publication (files 189-99). I took part, for example, in the annual conference of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice in 1994, the midwinter and annual meetings of the Canadian Bar Association in 1995, the University of New Brunswick Rand Symposium in 1996, which was published in the UNB Law Journal, and a conference organised by the Society for the Reform of the Criminal Law, also held in 1996, which was published in the Criminal Law Forum.

We prepared for our own research purposes a chronology of amendments to the Judges Act since Confederation (files 202-210) and to the Supreme Court Act since its establishment in 1875 (files 211-217). In addition, we compiled a chronology of all major parliamentary debates on these matters since Confederation. Boxes 11 and 12 contain this material which comprises a unique collection that will be of interest to other researchers (files 218-231).

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