Epilogue

• Author: Robert Décary
• Pages: 625-630

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Epilogue

  .   the words, from a land so dear to my f‌irst chief

justice, Frank Iacobucci, that came to mind when I f‌inished reading this

work — a work that describes not just a history, but rather the odyssey of the

Federal Courts from their origin to the present, the long journey through

time and into the heart of the law of these courts, which would inevitably

exist in controversy. ey came. ey saw. ey conquered. And, I would

add, they survived.

e Federal Courts did not have an easy start. ere were political

disputes about their creation and repeated attacks against their jurisdic-

tion by the Supreme Court of Canada. e existence of the Federal Courts

was questioned by lawyers in British Columbia, followed by the Canadian

Bar Association. ey had to contend with indigestible procedural rule

and abstract, impractical, inconsistent legislative distinctions between the

respective roles of the Appeal Division and the Trial Division, which baed

both litigants and the judges themselves, generating considerable expenses

and losses in time, energy, and funds. Appointments were too often tainted

by political partisanship; political past should not in itself be an obstacle to

an appointment — on the contrary, it is generally an asset when it comes to

exercising the power of judicial review over government acts — but that was a

time when the number of former federal cabinet members among the judges

of the Federal Courts could have given rise to fears of politicization.

To be frank, since their beginnings, the Federal Courts have been the

black sheep of the Canadian judicial system, as they disrupted its calm