Rosalie Abella

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The Hon. Madam Justice Rosalie Abella

Rosalie Silberman Abella, FRSC (born July 1, 1946 in Stuttgart, Germany) is a Canadian jurist. She was appointed in 2004 to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jewish woman to sit on the Canadian Supreme Court bench.

Abella was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, and came to Canada with her family in 1950. She graduated from the University of Toronto Law School in 1970, and practised civil and family law litigation until 1976, when she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court, becoming the youngest and first pregnant judge in Canadian history. She was then appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1992.

Abella, who is considered one of Canada's foremost experts in human rights law, has also been a chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board and the Ontario Law Reform Commission, and a board member of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. She was also a member of the judicial inquiry on the Donald Marshall case. She chaired the Ontario Study into Access to Legal Services by the Disabled.

Abella was the sole commissioner of the 1984 federal Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, in which she coined the term employment equity, a strategy for reducing barriers in employment faced by women, non-whites, people with disabilities, and Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

While also chair of the Law Reform Commission, she taught law at McGill University in Montreal.

Abella has also been active in Canadian cultural life. She has been a judge of the Giller Prize, and is a graduate of classical piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music.

She is married to Canadian historian Irving Abella and has two sons, lawyers Jacob and Zachary. She is the recipient of 23 Honorary degrees and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

She has been accused by some of being an activist judge with regards to an questionable interpretation legislation in the cause of feminism, and also radically diverging from common law precedents. She was paraphrased in a 1976 article by Margaret Mironowicz in the Globe and Mail, saying that being a judge was like playing God.

External links

• [Madam Justice Rosalie Abella]

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