Page 71 - ACTL Journal_Sum24

Justice Rosalie Abella – Rosie, once you have been introduced – was the youngest judge appointed in Canada and the longest serving ju- rist there. She was the first Jewish woman and the first refugee to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Justice Abella was born in a displaced persons camp for Holocaust survivors. She arrived in Canada at the age of four. Justice Abella’s father had been trained as a lawyer but was not allowed to practice in Canada because then the practice of law was limited to Canadian cit- izens. Justice Abella became determined to fulfill her father’s dreams.
Born in the shadows of the ultimate injustice, Justice Abella dedi- cated her life to achieving and protecting justice and equality. She is defined by three principles. First, indifference is injustice’s incubator. Second, it’s not what you stand for, it’s what you stand up for. And third, we must never forget how this world looks to the disadvantaged.
In 1984, she authored a report in which she coined the phrase, “employment equity.” That report influenced the Supreme Court of Canada in Andrews v. The Law Society of British Columbia, decided
fifteen years before Justice Abella herself joined that Court. In An- drews, the Court struck down the prohibition against non-citizens practicing law.
Her opinions on the Court have extended the capacity for same sex marriage, advanced the rights of individuals with disabilities, protect- ed the rights of unionized workers, and assured the rights of women.
As a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, she teaches a course on Law and Literature, the Application of Law to Life because, she explains, “Judges need to have a full understanding of what life is in order to judge it.”
This was the fifth time Rosie has agreed to speak at a College Meet- ing. And we usually abridge speeches for the Journal write-ups. Not this one. It is too good, too important to deprive you of a word.
So you see before you an unapologetic romantic about lawyers. I graduated from law school in 1970 and I’ve been proud every day since of being a lawyer. I’ve always seen lawyers as democracy’s warriors because lawyers are the people who protect rights and by protecting rights, protect justice. Since I see the protection of rights as repre- senting the most defining feature of democracies, lawyers are, in my view, their most important participants and we’ve never needed them more.
I consider it a great privilege to be asked to speak to the American College of Trial Lawyers so I spent a fair bit of time trying to think about what I could talk about that represented some shared interests and concerns. In the end, I decided to break this talk down into three issues that have preoccupied me for most of my adult life and now have me deeply concerned: The way we think about rights, the way we think about judges, and the way we think about the world. The topics flowed, in my mind, from history to reality to aspiration and, finally, to inspiration.
Let’s start with rights. What are they? Well, there are two kinds in my view: A distinction not always clearly under- stood but a difference that’s crucial if we’re going to be able to protect them. I’m speaking about civil liberties, which we learned from the United States, and human rights, which came later.
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