supremecourtjudges4

FRANK IACOBUCCI
A former Wall Street lawyer, law professor and former deputy minister of Justice, the Vancouver-born judge this month marked a decade on the top bench. One of the court's most prolific writers, Mr. Justice Frank Iacobucci's decisions are rarely predictable but are known to fuse broad legal principles with minute technical analysis.
Several important discrimination decisions last year applied Judge Iacobucci's landmark 1999 opinion in the case of Nancy Law. Judge Iacobucci wrote that the Canada Pension Plan did not discriminate against Ms. Law by denying her widow's benefits on the grounds that she was too young. The rules did not violate her "essential human dignity," wrote Judge Iacobucci who set out the court's revamped analytical approach to discrimination.
The human dignity approach to equality outlined in Law has been criticized by some as too restrictive and by others as too permissive, but promises to form the basis of many decisions to come.
In 2000, Judge Iacobucci authored a number of opinions in criminal law and found himself clarifying a few misunderstandings.
He authored the 5-4 decision that granted a retrial to Robert Dennis Starr for the execution-style killing of a Winnipeg gang member because the trial judge had not instructed the jury about reasonable doubt according to instructions set out in a 1997 Supreme Court case. Two provincial attorneys-general applied to reopen the case, alarmed that the ruling would imperil dozens of convictions across the country. Judge Iacobucci then authored two of a trilogy of hearsay decisions in which the court placated the provinces, explaining jury instructions need not be perfect and the Starr ruling would not apply retroactively to past convictions.
Judge Iacobucci also clarified the court's position on community-based sentences for aboriginal offenders.
In 1999, Judge Iacobucci co-authored the Gladue decision with now retired Supreme Court Judge Peter Cory. It held that judges must give special consideration to aboriginal background when sentencing accused criminals, as spelled out in the Criminal Code, regardless of whether or not they live on reserves. While that decision did not reduce the three-year jail term handed to an aboriginal woman who pled guilty to stabbing her common law husband to death, it affirmed that "the jail term for an aboriginal offender may in some circumstances be less than the term imposed on a non-aboriginal offender for the same offence."
In 2000, however, Judge Iacobucci wrote the unanimous opinion of the court denying a community-based sentence to James Wells, an aboriginal man sentenced to 20 months incarceration for sexual assault. The Gladue decision "does not mean that a sentence will automatically be reduced," Judge Iacobucci emphasized.
Judge Iacobucci also wrote the 8-1 decision in the case of Richard Oikle, finding that police did not cross the line into coercion by extracting a confession from an accused arsonist with misleading information about a failed lie detector test.
In his majority opinion in the Lovelace case, he again applied the reasoning in Law, finding a provincial plan to share the proceeds of a casino with bands registered under the Indian Act but not others was not discriminatory because it did not diminish the human dignity of the bands not included in the project.
Judge Iacobucci also authored the partial dissent in the Little Sisters Case, finding that the Canada Customs Act should have been struck down.
"Systemic problems call for systemic solutions," he declared.

BEVERLEY MCLACHLIN
In her first year presiding over the top court, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin strictly enforced time limits on long-winded lawyers and made no bones about pointing out to counsel if they appeared to be talking in circles.
Her schedule of world travelling and speaking engagements, from China to Israel, and ceremonial duties such as swearing in new federal Cabinet appointees in her capacity as deputy governor-general, as well as running the administration of the court and presiding over the court's 125th anniversary celebrations, have kept the new Chief Justice busy.
Nonetheless, she had time to author three major dissents, in the Starr and Deschamps cases on jury instructions on reasonable doubt and in the Musqueam band case -- holding that Indian reserve land should be valued the same way as land under other kinds of governance.
Chief Justice McLachlin's past decisions have shown strong support for civil libertarian claims, particularly freedom of speech.
Nonetheless, the Chief Justice has not sided predictably with civil libertarian claims. She ruled with the majority to allow restrictions on third party campaign spending to continue during the recent federal campaign.
On the other hand, she joined Justice Louise Arbour's dissent in the K.L.W. case that said the warrantless removal of an infant was a violation of the rights of the mother.
Her sole majority opinion in a case heard since becoming Chief Justice was a 6-3 decision to side with the Ontario Labour Relations Board and the CAW union in rejecting the appeal of the Ontario municipality of Ajax that cancelled a contract with a bus driving company, and rehired workers without the prior collective bargaining agreement.

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