OTTAWA—Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, Canada’s longest-serving and first female Chief Justice, will step down from the bench Dec. 15, she announced Monday.McLachlin has led the country’s top court for more than 17 years, in the process transforming it into a modern institution.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a statement said: “Chief Justice McLachlin’s judicial accomplishments are unparalleled in Canadian history. 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. Canadians owe her an immense debt. On behalf of all Canadians, I thank Chief Justice McLachlin for her long and dedicated service to Canada.”In the announcement notice, McLachlin is quoted saying, “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.”McLachlin 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.She was the target of Conservative critics for leading a judicially “activist” court that thwarted the will of Parliament, but she always rejected that label, and argued it was elected legislators who tasked judges with implementing 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.Last fall, in an exclusive interview McLachlin told the Star she felt she still had work to do to integrate an exp ...
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