Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture Archives
Building Public Trust and Confidence in Policing"
The Hon. Michael H. Tulloch
Chief Justice of Ontario and President of the Court of Appeal for Ontario
In 2016, Chief Justice Tulloch was appointed by the Ontario government to conduct important reviews which resulted in two extensive reports: the 2017 Report of the Independent Police Oversight Review (PDF) and the 2018 Report of the Independent Street Checks Review. He served on the Government Response Team for the Commission on Systemic Racism while working as a Crown Attorney. He was also chair of a review panel on Osgoode Hall Law School’s admissions policy in 2006.
Chief Justice Tulloch served as a member of the Ontario Superior Court Education Committee, the National Judicial Institute, and the Commissioner’s Judicial Advisory Committee on International Engagement. He was a Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto and a Distinguished Research Fellow in the Centre of Law and Policy at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). He was a founding member and a patron of the Second Chance Scholarship Foundation and Chair of the Advisory Board to the Black Business and Professional Association. He has been a frequent speaker in various postsecondary institutions as well as professional and community forums.
Chief Justice Tulloch was born in Jamaica. He holds a BA from York University and a LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School. He has also received honorary Doctor of Laws (Hon. LLD) degrees from the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), the University of Guelph, and the Law Society of Ontario, as well as an honorary Doctor of Divinity (Hon. DD) degree from Tyndale University and Seminary. He was admitted to the Bar of Ontario in 1991 and was first appointed to the bench in 2003 when he was named judge of the Superior Court of Justice for Ontario. In 2012, he was elevated to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and was recently named Chief Justice of Ontario and President of the Court of Appeal.
The Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture was convened by the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
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"The Overstory and the Understory: Reconciling Canadian law with Indigenous Peoples"
Ms. Jean Teillet, Indigenous rights lawyer and author
4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Rosalie Silberman Abella Moot Court Room
Jackman Law Building, 78 Queen's ParkJean Teillet is the great-grandniece of Louis Riel and an Indigenous rights lawyer. She is the author of Métis Law in Canada and The North-West is Our Mother: The Story of Louis Riel’s People, the Métis Nation.
The Honourable George Strathy (LLB '74), Chief Justice of Ontario
Judicial Courage and Restraint in Canadian Constitutional History
4:30pm to 6:00pm
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Rosalie Silberman Abella Moot Court Room
Jackman Law Building, 78 Queen's ParkThis year, the Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture will serve as an introduction to the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights’ 2017 Constitutional Roundtable series, which will be in celebration of Canada’s Sesquicentennial. This special Constitutional Roundtable series will be focused on Canada’s 150th anniversary of confederation and the development of Canada’s constitutional and human rights from the British North America Act to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The series will include papers that provide an analysis of constitutional litigation throughout Canada’s history with a focus on seminal cases that have made an impact on the Canadian constitutional rights landscape.
The Honourable Lynn Smith
"The Quest for a Charter Equality Test: Has the
Longest Way Round Been the Shortest Way Home?"4:00 – 5:30 p.m.
February 27, 2013
Rowell Room, Flavelle House, Faculty of Law
A reception will follow in the Faculty Lounge.
Watch the webcast of this lecture
Lynn Smith, B.A. (University of Calgary), LL.B. (University of British Columbia), LL.D. (Hon.) (Simon Fraser University) was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1998. She served as a Justice of that Court until her retirement in September 2012. Prior to her appointment as a judge, she practised law at Shrum, Liddle and Hebenton (now McCarthy Tetrault), specializing in civil litigation. She taught law at the University of British Columbia 1981-97 in areas including Constitutional Law, Evidence, Civil Litigation, and Real Property. She has published books and articles in the fields of Charter equality rights, civil litigation and evidence, human rights, administrative law, and women's equality. She was Dean of the U.B.C. Law Faculty 1991-97. In 2005-06, Lynn Smith was Executive Director of the National Judicial Institute, on secondment from the Court. She is a Judicial Associate of the National Judicial Institute and serves on the faculty of the Charter and Evidence Workshops as well as the New Federally-Appointed Judges Program. She has been involved in international judicial education exchanges with China, Scotland, Ghana and Viet Nam. During a Judicial Study Leave in 2009-10, she researched credibility assessment, examining the psychological and social science literature as well as the law. She published a paper on that topic, and prepared a program on credibility assessment used in National Judicial Institute seminars. Lynn Smith was the Chair of the B.C. Supreme Court Law Clerks Committee and of the Committee on Communications Technology, whose report was adopted by the Court in May, 2012. Commencing in January, 2013, she is teaching a seminar on Constitutional Litigation at the U.B.C. Faculty of Law. She is married to Jon Sigurdson, who is a Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. They have two daughters, Elin Sigurdson and Krista Sigurdson.
This lecture is co-sponsored by the
JOHN AND MARY YAREMKO FUND FOR MULTICULTURALISM AND HUMAN RIGHTSMarlys Edwardh
Friday, April 1, 2011
4:30 p.m. (Reception to follow)
Bennett Lecture Hall
Faculty of Law, University of TorontoWatch the webcast of the 2011 Gross Lecture
Reflecting on a distinguished career in law involving some of the most significant court cases in the country, Marlys Edwardh will address the challenges of funding important test case litigation. Her lecture caps off the afternoon’s symposium organized by the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights – Funding the Charter Challenge – and will challenge us to be creative and optimistic in advocating for social justice.
Marlys Edwardh, C.M. practises with Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP in criminal, constitutional and administrative/regulatory law, with an emphasis on civil and human rights and national security litigation. She has been counsel in many leading constitutional cases and high-profile criminal matters. Ms. Edwardh has also served as a Director, Secretary, Treasurer and Second Vice President of the Advocates’ Society, a Director of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, a Director of and subsequently Special Advisor to the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, and a Director and currently Vice President of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She appears regularly before all levels of court in Ontario, the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. Notable cases include R. v. Swain, R. v. Parks, United States v. Burns, Odhavji Estate v. Woodhouse, R. v. Truscott, R. v. Grant, and R. v. Conway. She has also served as counsel to and before several Commissions of Inquiry, including the Marshall inquiry, the Krever inquiry, and most recently the Arar inquiry. Ms. Edwardh’s commitment to social justice and her contributions to the profession have been widely recognized. She has received numerous awards and honours, including the Law Society of Upper Canada Medal, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association G. Arthur Martin Criminal Justice Award, the Vox Libera award from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, the Women’s Law Association President’s Award, the Toronto Lawyers’ Association Award of Distinction, Professional Recognition Awards from the Midwifery Education Programme and the Canadian Muslim Network, and the inaugural Dianne Martin Medal for Social Justice Through Law. Marlys Edwardh is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and in 2010 was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.
Thomas M. Franck
Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law Emeritus
New York UniversityTuesday, September 23, 2008
4:00 p.m.
Falconer Hall, Solarium
84 Queen's Park"The Inexplicable Effectiveness of the Concept of Proportionality in International Law"
The notion of proportionality is foundational to all legal systems and underpins cultural and ethical thinking about retribution, punishment and justice. In international law it provides the basis for determining what countermeasures a state may take against an aggressor.
Given its importance, it is surprising that the idea of proportionality is so little defined in legal and moral theory, even as it is so often invoked in practice.
In international law, too, proportionality is a well-known legal concept applicable to international criminal law, the law of war, the law in war, trade law, human rights law and international administrative law. In each of these fields, it seeks to clarify the line between permissible in impermissible countermeasures. In a relatively primitive legal system, reliance on countermeasures is often the best, or even the only, foundation of the legal order.
Professor Franck's lecture will explore this paradox of a legal notion that is, at once, both powerful and ill-defined. He will explore the unusual role and responsibility of those charged with rendering "second opinions" in the space created by that paradox.
A leader in the field of international law, Thomas M. Franck joined the New York University School of Law faculty in 1960. Franck, now the Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law Emeritus, has been the Director of the Center for International Studies from 1965-2002. In addition, he has taught in a visiting capacity at Stanford Law School, University of East Africa, York University, University of Toronto, Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, Hague Academy of International Law, Cambridge University, Hastings College of the Law, Georgetown University Law Center and American University Washington College of Law. From 1973 to 1979, he also served as Director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's International Law Program, and from 1980 to1982, as Director of Research at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. Professor Franck's interest in public international law is practical as well as theoretical. Indeed, he has acted as legal adviser or counsel to many foreign governments, including Tanganyika, Kenya, Zanzibar, Mauritius, Solomon Islands, El Salvador, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Chad. As an advocate before the International Court of Justice, he has successfully represented Chad and Bosnia in a suit brought against Serbia under the Genocide Convention. He has served as a judge ad hoc (Indonesia/Malaysia) before the World Court from 2001 to 2002. He was a member of the Tribunal constituted under the Law of the Sea Treaty to hear the boundary dispute between Guyana and Suriname. And, from 1986 to the present, he serves on the Department of State Advisory Committee on International Law. Professor Franck is past President of the American Society of International Law (1998-2000) and served as editor-in-chief of The American Journal of International Law from 1984 to 1993. Today, Franck lends his services to numerous organizations ranging from the American Branch of the International Law Association to the American Society of International Law.
The author of more than thirty books and a two-time Guggenheim Fellowship winner, Franck received the Christopher Medal for Resignation in Protest, the Hudson Medal of the American Society of International Law and the Read Medal of the Canadian Council of International Law. The American Society of International Law has awarded him a Certificate of Merit for four of his books: United States Foreign Relations Law: Documents and Sources; Nation Against Nation: What Happened to the U.N. Dream and What the U.S. Can Do About It; Political Questions/Judicial Answers: Does the Rule of Law Apply to Foreign Affairs?; and Fairness in International Law and Institutions. He holds honorary degrees from the University of British Columbia, the Monterey Institute of International Studies and Glasgow University.
The Hon. Irwin Cotler
Former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of CanadaFebruary 15, 2007
The Hon. Irwin Cotler discussed the appointment of judges, a critical aspect of his former role as Minister of Justice. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he addressed the impact of the Charter and Canada's transformation to a constitutional democracy. He also discussed the contemporary issues of terrorism and human rights, combating racism and hate and combating mass atrocity.
Biography
February 2007
Irwin Cotler is Member of Parliament for Mount Royal, where he was first elected in a by-election in November 1999 with 92% of the vote, in what was characterized as “the most stunning electoral victory in this century by any standard”. He was re-elected in the general elections of November 2000, June 2004, and January 2006, with the highest Liberal majority in the country.
On December 12, 2003, the Prime Minister appointed him Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. He was reappointed following the General Election of June 28, 2004, and served as a member of the following Cabinet Committees: Aboriginal Affairs; Domestic Affairs; Global Affairs; Canada-U.S Relations; and Security, Public Health and Emergencies. He is currently official opposition critic for Public Safety, and is a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, and of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
As Minister of Justice and Attorney General until the General Election of January 2006, he helped transform the face of the judiciary through the appointment of two outstanding women justices to the Supreme Court of Canada –Mesdames Justices Rosalie Abella and Louise Charron– making the Supreme Court of Canada the most gender representative Supreme Court in the world, while appointing the first ever visible minority and aboriginal justices to appellate courts. He also initiated legislation for the Protection of Children and other Vulnerable Persons; the first ever legislation to criminalize trafficking in persons; made the pursuit of international justice a priority, including, in particular, the combating of mass atrocity and genocides; and quashed more wrongful convictions in a single year than any prior Minister.
An M.P. since 1999, he has made a distinctive mark as Chair of the Parliamentarians for Global Action (Canada); founder of the all-party Save Darfur Parliamentary Coalition; Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group, the first ever all-party joint House-Senate human rights caucus; Executive Member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union; and Honourary Member of the Liberal Women’s Caucus. A leading public advocate in and out of Parliament for the Human Rights Agenda, he headed the Canadian Delegation to the Stockholm International Forum on the Prevention of Genocide.
Mr. Cotler is currently on leave as a Professor of Law at McGill University, where he is Director of its Human Rights Programme, and Chair of InterAmicus, the McGill-based International Human Rights Advocacy Centre. He has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Yale Law School, and is the recipient of eight Honourary Doctorates, including one from York University, whose citation referred to him as “a scholar and advocate of international stature”.
One of the founders of the “Poverty Law” movement in Canada and the Pointe Saint-Charles Legal Aid Clinic some thirty-five years ago, he was also one of the founders of “Project Genesis” – a community service storefront office – in the Mount Royal riding and one of the original architects of what has become a Quebec and nation-wide legal services programme.
An international human rights lawyer, Professor Cotler served as Counsel to former prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union (Andrei Sakharov), South Africa (Nelson Mandela), Latin America (Jacobo Timmerman), and Asia (Muchtar Pakpahan). He later served as international legal counsel to imprisoned Russian environmentalist Aleksandr Nikitin; Nigerian playwright and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka; the Chilean-Canadian group Vérité et justice in the Pinochet case; and Chinese-Canadian political prisoner, Professor KunLun Zhang. More recently, he served as Counsel to Professor Saad Edin Ibrahim, the leading democracy advocate in the Arab world. In the words of his students on the occasion of his receiving an Honourary Doctorate, “A pioneer in the area of international human rights law and advocacy, Irwin Cotler’s legal briefs have emerged as models for the new ‘genre’ of advocacy… his initiatives have broken new ground in this area, and he has achieved international renown for his defence of political prisoners.” A feature article on him in Maclean’s magazine referred to him as “Counsel for the Oppressed”.
A constitutional and comparative law scholar, he litigated every section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including landmark cases in the areas of free speech, freedom of religion, women's rights, minority rights, war crimes justice, prisoners’ rights, and peace law. He has testified as an expert witness on human rights before Parliamentary Committees in Canada, the United States, Russia, Sweden, Norway, and Israel, and has lectured at major international academic and professional gatherings in America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
A noted peace activist, he has been a leader in the movement for arms control, and helped develop “Peace Law” as an area of both academic inquiry and legal advocacy; as well, Professor Cotler has been engaged – both as scholar and participant observer – in the search for peace in the Middle East. He has lectured in both Arab countries and Israel for over thirty years, and has been an active participant in rapprochement dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians. He was the first Government Minister to visit the Middle East – promoted a common justice agenda in the region– and secured agreement among the Justice Ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority to participate in the first ever joint Justice Forum.
A leader in the struggle against impunity and the development of international humanitarian law, Professor Cotler served as Counsel to the Deschênes Commission of Inquiry in the matter of bringing Nazi war criminals to justice; filed amicus briefs before the International Criminal Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda; and was leading advocate for the establishment of an International Criminal Court.
A long-time advocate in the international struggle against racism and discrimination of any kind, Professor Cotler was at the forefront of the international struggle against apartheid, as well as the architect of legal remedies against racism in Canada and beyond, both in his capacity as Minister of Justice and formerly as legal counsel for national and international NGOs.
Professor Cotler’s efforts have resulted in his chairing, or being a member of, a number of governmental and citizens' Commissions of Inquiry –including being Chair of the International Commission of Inquiry into the Fate and Whereabouts of Raoul Wallenberg; Chair of the Commission on Economic Coercion and Discrimination; member of the Commission of Inquiry on the Crime of Apartheid.
Professor Cotler was appointed in 1992 as an Officer of the Order of Canada, where he was cited for his “extraordinary contribution to the cause of human rights”. He is the only Canadian elected to the Paris-based Académie universelle des cultures (1993), and the first recipient of the Justice Walter Tarnopolsky Memorial Medal awarded jointly by the Canadian Bar Association, the Canadian Judges Association, the Canadian Association of Law Teachers, and the International Commission of Jurists (1994). In September 1999, Professor Cotler became the first academic ever to receive The Medal of the Bar of Montreal in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to the cause of justice”; and, more recently, he became the first recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr., Humanitarian Award; the recipient of the first F.R. Scott Distinguished Service Medal of the Faculty of Law of the McGill University for Leadership and Community Service; the first recipient of the Honourary Frederick Johnson Award in recognition of his leadership in the struggle against racism; the recipient of the Philippe Pinel Award for his work on behalf of the oppressed all over the world; and of the Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award from the Tufts University in recognition of a “lifelong passion and concern for human rights… for a distinguished career of integrity in international law and in the administration of justice”.The Hon. Michael J. Bryant
Ontario Attorney GeneralMar. 1, 2005
4:30 PM to 5:45 PM
Bennett Lecture Hall
Flavelle House (78 Queen's Park)The Hon. R. Roy McMurtry, Chief Justice of Ontario:
The Creation of the Charter of Rights: A Personal MemoirOn March 13th, the Faculty of Law welcomed the Hon. Roy McMurtry, Chief Justice of Ontario, as the 2003 presenter of the Morris A. Gross Memorial Lecture, established in memory of the late Morris A. Gross (Class of '49) by the law firm Minden, Gross, Grafstein & Greenstein and by members of his family, friends and professional associates.
McMurtry has long been at the centre of important constitutional events in Canada, including his famous participation in the negotiations and the Supreme Court reference case leading up to the patriation of the BNA Act and its proclamation as Canada's constitution in 1982.
In his informative hour long lecture, McMurtry recalled the late 1970s and early 1980s - years when he was Ontario's attorney general - with an acute historical sense, and an insider's knowledge of detail. Though controversial at the time and since, McMurtry expressed no regrets about decisions pertaining to the constitution and the charter of rights, although his disappointment remains over the fact of Quebec's opting out.
McMurtrys lecture ended with a lively question and answer session during which he recounted how in politics things rarely turn out the way you might think beforehand. Big Roy, keep your head up, is how Jean Chretien laughingly greeted McMurtry during a conference call shortly after the Mulroney Tories defeated the Liberals and swept to power in 1984. To those assembled for this years Gross Lecture, Chief Justice McMurtry's presence was evidence that he had done so.