Madame Justice Inger Hansen

This oral history documents the remarkable career of Justice Inger Hansen, who emigrated from Denmark to Canada in 1950 after experiencing the German occupation during World War II. Born in Copenhagen in 1929, Hansen witnessed the resistance movement and the rescue of Danish Jews, experiences that profoundly shaped her commitment to civil liberties and criminal justice reform.

After establishing herself as a criminal defence lawyer in Vancouver in the 1960s—one of only a handful of women practicing criminal law at the time—Hansen moved to Ottawa to join the federal Solicitor General’s Department. She played a key role in developing reforms to the Juvenile Delinquents Act and was appointed as Canada’s first Correctional Investigator (Penitentiary Ombudsman) in 1973, serving five years in this pioneering role. Her extensive travels to federal penitentiaries across Canada and her annual reports to Parliament established important precedents for prison oversight and inmates’ rights.

Hansen’s international work included active involvement with the International Bar Association and serving as both Privacy Commissioner and Information Commissioner for the federal government. She completed a Master’s degree in Public Administration at Queen’s University, writing her thesis on wartime censorship. In 1991, she was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice (Provincial Division), where she served primarily in criminal court. Throughout her career, Hansen was recognized as a trailblazer for women in the legal profession and a champion of civil liberties and correctional reform.

This description was written by AI and may contain some inaccuracies.