Notable Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada

Quebec civil-law lawyer, Quebec Court of Appeal judge before SCC. Bilingual; champion of access to justice and judicial independence.

Co-author of Vavilov (2019) — the modern standard-of-review framework. Public-facing in defending judicial independence and judicial use of plain language.

Born in Montreal; legal career in commercial litigation before judicial appointment. As CJ, has emphasised the importance of accessible justice and convened the SCC's first hearings outside Ottawa (Winnipeg 2019).

Alberta-born; raised in Pincher Creek. UBC law professor and BC Supreme Court justice before SCC.

Longest-serving Chief Justice in Canadian history. Defined the modern shape of s.7 (Bedford, Carter), administrative law (Dunsmuir), and Indigenous law (Tsilhqot'in, Haida).

Authored an unusual number of unanimous reasons during her CJ tenure, prizing institutional consensus. After retirement she sat on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal and chaired several reviews. Memoir: 'Truth Be Told' (2019).

Manitoba lawyer and trial-court judge. Lost a leg to wartime injury in WWII.

Defined Charter interpretation in its first decade. Authored Big M Drug Mart, Hunter v Southam, Oakes — the foundational trio of Charter doctrine.

Widely regarded as the architect of the Charter era. His purposive method (Hunter), the Oakes test, and the substantive interpretation of fundamental justice (BC Motor Vehicle Reference) remain the spine of Canadian constitutional law.

Quebec civil-law and criminal lawyer; Quebec Court of Appeal before SCC. Defence-oriented criminal-law background.

Author of the BC Motor Vehicle Reference establishing substantive PFJs. Prolific Charter criminal-procedure jurisprudence.

First francophone CJ. Pushed substantive content into s.7 and shaped Charter criminal procedure during the formative period.

Scottish-born; later Ontario lawyer at Osler. First woman appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal (1975) and the SCC (1982).

Substantive feminist constitutional reasoning. Concurrence in Morgentaler grounding security of the person in reproductive autonomy. Concurring opinion in Lavallee on battered woman syndrome.

Trailblazer for women in the Canadian judiciary. Her 1990 Bertha Wilson lecture 'Will women judges really make a difference?' became foundational to Canadian feminist legal theory.

Quebec civil-law lawyer and Quebec Court of Appeal judge. Second woman appointed to the SCC.

Substantive equality and feminist jurisprudence; landmark contributions to family law (Moge), administrative fairness (Baker), and sexual-assault law.

Known for forceful concurrences and dissents pressing equality concerns. Author of the majority in Moge restating spousal-support law and the lead in Baker establishing modern fairness doctrine.

Vancouver-born of Italian descent; tax and corporate lawyer. Federal Deputy Attorney General before judicial appointment.

Equality (Vriend), administrative law, commercial litigation. Co-author of multiple major reasons.

Brought a federal-public-service perspective to the SCC. After retirement chaired the Iacobucci Inquiry into Canadian officials and Maher Arar, Almalki et al.

New Brunswick lawyer; co-founded the Université de Moncton Faculty of Law. Acadian francophone.

Linguistic rights and bijuralism. Co-author of Dunsmuir.

Brought a francophone-minority and bijural perspective. Helped shape Canadian language-rights jurisprudence.

British-born; Bay Street commercial litigator. Federal Associate Deputy Attorney General before judicial appointment.

Authoritative commercial reasoning; key contributions in Tercon, Marshall, and modern administrative law.

Known for crisp, accessible reasons and a willingness to write long. Among the SCC's most cited modern judges in commercial law.

Ontario family-court and labour-board adjudicator. Authored the 1984 Royal Commission report 'Equality in Employment' that introduced the term 'employment equity'.

Sustained substantive-equality jurisprudence. Reasons in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, MPAO, Doré.

Daughter of Holocaust survivors; first refugee to sit on the SCC. Defined modern Canadian equality and labour Charter doctrine.