Tribute

• Author: Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella
• Pages: 39-42

Three

Tribute

JUSTICE ROSALIE SILBERMAN ABELLA

There

are

many legacies

of

Claire L'Heureux-Dube:

the

international conver-

sions

to

equality

she

inspired;

the

domestic

and

gender-neutral nurturing

of

colleagues

committed

to

gender neutrality;

the

public record

of an

unswerv-

ing

devotion

to

human rights;

and her

private loyalty

to

family

and

friends.

But

of all the

memorable achievements

of

this memorable judge, none

is

more profound than

the

jurisprudence

she

tenaciously developed during

her

fifteen

years

on the

Supreme

Court

of

Canada.

She

took

the

torch

lit by

Brian

Dickson

and

Bertha Wilson into

her

firm

grasp

and

never

let

that light stop

glowing

for

human rights.

L'Heureux-Dube

has

explained

her

passion

for

compassion

as

springing

from

what

she

learned

from

her

mother's courage

at

home

and

from

her

pro-

fession's insularity when

she

decided

to

become

a

lawyer.

The

personal

and

professional

environments were exceptional incubators

for the

judge

she

grew

into, teaching

her to

overcome obstacles

and

opposition with grace

and

grit.

In

return,

she

found generosity

and

respect.

The

juristic phenomenon this

forged

can

really only

be

understood

if

one

remembers

the

climate

in

which

her

most important judgments were

produced. Judicially, L'Heureux-Dube found herself

for a

full

decade

on a

court

in

which

the

jurisprudential trajectory

was

criminal law. This concen-

tration, perhaps

an

inevitable second chapter

to the

human rights-oriented

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