Legal Research

Interviewing the Chief

By Simon Chester

Since one doesn’t often get a chance to hear Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin being interviewed candidly and directly, here is a link to a video of last night’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin entitled Setting the bar high: Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin on her role as Canada’s top judge.

Among other minor indiscretions, she appears to like the Ottawa Senators: toujours rouge.

We’ve come a long way since Felsky’s, “The Berger Affair and the Independence of the Judiciary” (1984), 42. U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 118, which showed Chief Justice Laskin so anxious to protect the institution of the judiciary that he went out of his way to single out Justice Tom Berger’s activities in speaking out to intense CJC scrutiny. The late Michael Fitzjames gave the media’s side of the issue, complaining that he was tired of being harrumphed at by judges. Lorne Sossin brings that story up to date in the Matlow Inquiry background documents.

Full post as published by Slaw.ca on December 02, 2009 (boomark / email).