Judging Bertha Wilson : : Law as Large as Life / / Ellen Anderson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UTP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: Anderson, Ellen,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2002
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, is an enormously influential and controversial figure in Canadian legal and political history. This engaging, authorized, intellectual biography draws on interviews conducted under the auspices of the Osgoode Society for Legal History, held in Scotland and Canada with Madame Justice Wilson, as well as with her friends, relatives, and colleagues. The biography traces Wilson's story from her birth in Scotland in 1923 to the present. Wilson's contributions to the areas of human rights law and equality jurisprudence are many and well-known. Lesser known are her early days in Scotland and her work as a minister's wife or her post-judicial work on gender equality for the Canadian Bar Association and her contributions to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.Through a scrupulous survey of Wilson's judgements, memos, and academic writings (many as yet unpublished), Ellen Anderson shows how Wilson's life and the law were seamlessly integrated in her persistent commitment to a stance of principled contextuality. This stance has had an enduring effect on the evolution of Canadian law and cultural history. Supported with the warmth and generosity of Wilson's numerous personal anecdotes, this work illuminates the life and thought of a woman who has left an extraordinary mark on Canada's legal landscape.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword / McMurtry, R. Roy / Oliver, Peter N. -- Foreword -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Part One. The Preparatory Years: Life Before the Bench -- 1. Growing Up: Daughter, Sister, and Student -- 2. The Clergyman'S Wife -- 3. Diligence at Dalhousie -- 4. The Osler Innovations -- PART TWO. On the Bench: The Ontario Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada -- 5. The Ontario Court of Appeal -- 6. A Canadian Philosophy of Judicial Analysis -- 7. The Supreme Court of Canada -- 8. Diversity at the Margins -- 9. Beyond Family Law: Justice for Women and Children -- 10. Getting Down to Business: Law and Economics in the Marketplace -- 11. Contextual Proceduralism -- 12. Outside the Court -- PART THREE. Life after Judging -- 13. The Gender Equality Study -- 14. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples -- 15. Portrait of a Judge -- Adjunct Interviews -- Archival Resources -- Select Bibliography -- Index -- Backmatter