Beverley Marian McLachlinPCCC (born September 7, 1943) is a Canadian jurist and author who served as the 17th chief justice of Canada from 2000 to 2017. She is the longest-serving chief justice in Canadian history and the first woman to hold the position.
In July 2018, McLachlin began a three-year term as a non-permanent judge on the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal, the first Canadian jurist nominated to the post. She was re-appointed for a second three-year term in 2021.[1] In June 2024, she announced that she would retire from the court when her term ends on July 29, 2024.[2]
McLachlin has one son, Angus (born 1976), from her first marriage to Roderick McLachlin, who took care of much of Angus's upbringing.[6] Roderick McLachlin died of cancer in 1988, a few days after she was appointed chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court.[6] In 1992, McLachlin married Frank McArdle, a lawyer and the executive director of the Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association.[6]
In July 2013, during the consultation period prior to appointment for Marc Nadon, Chief Justice McLachlin contacted justice minister Peter MacKay and the Prime Minister's Office regarding the eligibility of Marc Nadon for a Quebec seat on the Supreme Court.[12] Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that he had refused a phone call from McLachlin on the attorney general's advice. Harper's comments were criticized by the legal community and a complaint was forwarded to the International Commission of Jurists in Switzerland.[13][14] The International Commission of Jurists concluded that Beverly McLachlin deserved an apology from Harper, but none had been given as of July 2014.[15]
In May 2015, McLachlin was invited to speak at the Global Centre for Pluralism, and said that Canada attempted to commit "cultural genocide" against aboriginal peoples in what she called the worst stain on Canada's human-rights record.[16] University of Regina academic Ken Coates supported McLachlin, and said that she was "only stating what is clearly in the minds of judges, lawyers and aboriginal people across the country".[17] Others were less sympathetic. Columnist Lysiane Gagnon called the comments "unacceptable" and "highly inflammatory" and suggested that McLachlin had opened herself up to accusations of prejudice.[18]Gordon Gibson, another columnist, said the use of the word "genocide" was incendiary and disproportionate and that the Chief Justice's comments made her sound like a legislator.[19]
McLachlin retired from the Supreme Court on December 15, 2017, nine months before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.[20] Her successor as Chief Justice of Canada is Richard Wagner, who was nominated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2017.[21] Her successor as a justice of the court is Sheilah Martin, who was nominated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau through a new process for judicial appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada that permitted, "any Canadian lawyer or judge who fits a specified criteria" to apply.[22][23][24]
Hong Kong
McLachlin was nominated in March 2018 to become a non-permanent member of the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong. The court appoints foreign judges from common-law jurisdictions outside of Hong Kong, of which McLachlin is the first Canadian, to sit as non-permanent members of the court.[25] Her three-year appointment was approved by the Hong Kong Legislative Council,[26] and the chief executive gazetted the appointment effective July 30, 2018.[27] McLachlin's appointment was accompanied by those of Brenda Hale, also as non-permanent judge, and Andrew Cheung, as permanent judge, at the court.[28][29] She was reappointed to the court in 2021 for a second three-year term.[1]
Her service on the court has been criticized amidst the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests and imposition of the National Security Law, which is seen by Western observers as threatening civil liberties in the city. As a Court of Final Appeal judge, McLachlin would be required to uphold the law in appellate judgements.[1] A motion at the Law Society of Ontario to condemn her appointment was defeated 28–17 in February 2021.[1] In June 2022, she announced her decision to remain on the court which she believes to still be independent.[30] McLachlin has stated her intention to retire once her term in Hong Kong expires in July 2024.[31]
Other courts
McLachlin also serves as an international judge on the Singapore International Commercial Court.[32]
Judicial philosophy
McLachlin has defined the judicial function as one that requires conscious objectivity, which she has described as follows:[6]
What you have to try to do as a judge, whether you're on charter issues or any other issue, is by an act of the imagination put yourself in the shoes of the different parties, and think about how it looks from their perspective, and really think about it, not just give it lip service.
McLachlin has argued that courts may be justified in changing the law where such a change would accord with changes in society's values.[33] She regards Edwards v Canada (Attorney General), in which the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council found that women were entitled to sit in the Senate of Canada, as a paradigm case in Canadian law.[34] She has stated "courts are the ultimate guardians of the rights of society, in our system of government."[35][36] She has also stated, "I think the court belongs to the Canadian people and it should reflect the Canadian people."[6]
McLachlin has defended the view that "legal certainty"—the notion that there is one correct answer to a legal question, which judges can discover with diligence—is a "myth".[37][38]
Mahmud Jamal, now a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, has argued that McLachlin's jurisprudence on the law of federalism is consistent with her "self-described judicial philosophy", namely that judges are to be "scrupulously non-partisan and impartial".[39]
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^Bell, Evan (March 2012). "Reflecting on the judicial role: how valid is the analogy that 'judges are like umpires'?". Commonwealth Law Bulletin. 38 (1): 3–29. doi:10.1080/03050718.2012.646732. ISSN0305-0718. S2CID145465046. Chief Justice McLachlin of Canada has referred to 'the myth of legal certainty'. This, she describes, is the myth that, if the judges look hard enough, long enough and wisely enough, they will find in the law the single clear answer to a question.
^McLachlin, Beverley (June 3, 2004). Judging in a Democratic State (Speech). Archived from the original on October 23, 2020. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
Greene, Ian; McCormick, Peter (2019). Beverley McLachlin: The Legacy of a Supreme Court Chief Justice. Toronto: Lorimer. ISBN978-1-4594-1440-2.
Gruben, Vanessa; Mayeda, Graham; Rees, Owen, eds. (2022). Controversies in the Common Law: Tracing the Contributions of Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. University of Toronto Press. ISBN978-1-4875-4074-6.
Moore, Marcus; Jutras, Daniel, eds. (2018). Canada's Chief Justice: Beverley McLachlin's legacy of law and leadership. Toronto: LexisNexis Canada. ISBN978-0-433-49911-4.
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