• When and Why was the Supreme Court of Canada (almost not) Founded?

    Contributor: Mary Stokes The Supreme Court of Canada is a prominent feature of the Canadian political landscape; it is difficult to conceive of the country without it. But for the first few years of our existence as a federated dominion this was in fact the case: the Supreme Court did not spring into being automatically… Read more »

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  • Who have been Women Judges in Ontario?

    This brief history of women judges in Ontario is offered as a homage to those who came before me and to those who came to the bench in the 9 years after my appointment in 1981. It consists of three parts. Part 1 lists all the federally-appointed and provincially-appointed judges down to 1990. Each entry… Read more »

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  • Who was the First Black Lawyer in Canada?

    Contributor: Mary Stokes Race is a notoriously slippery construct. Who and what is black or white or ‘other’ are questions which have been long debated by lawyers and historians. But the difficulty of distinguishing the first lawyers of colour in Canada relates less to the indeterminacy of their colour than to questions of periodization and… Read more »

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  • Why Roncarelli v. Duplessis was Crucial to the Rule of Law?

    Contributor: Mary Stokes It is a truism that law is political. After all, politicians enact policy through legislation. The deep politics of the judicial system is less overt and often denied, but occasionally there is no mistaking the political nature of judicial proceedings, even outside state criminal trials. Law has met politics in the civil… Read more »

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  • Who Was the First Woman called to the Bar in Ontario,and Canada, and the British Empire ?

    Contributor: Mary Stokes Though women are still under-represented in many arenas of the legal profession, the ‘call to the bar’—the ceremony which marks the official entrance to the practice of law–is no longer one of them. The preponderance of women in law schools has finally compellingly refuted the strongly held and strongly voiced objections of those… Read more »

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  • Who Were the Judges of the Court of King’s Bench for Upper Canada ?

    Contributor: Jim Phillips The Court of King’s Bench was founded in 1794, by the Judicature Act (34 Geo III, c. 2) of that year. The Act abolished the existing district Courts of Common Pleas and established King’s Bench as the sole superior court for the colony. The new court had ‘all such powers and authorities… Read more »

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