150 Years of the Supreme Court of Canada / Les 150 ans de la Cour suprême du Canada

In 2025, the Supreme Court of Canada marked its 150th anniversary. 150 Years of the Supreme Court of Canada / Les 150 ans de la Cour suprême du Canada edited by Noura Karazivan, Vanessa MacDonnell and Naiomi Walqwan Metallic is a special collection of 17 papers that were presented at a conference about the anniversary held at the University of Ottawa in June 2025.

The Court’s 150th anniversary is an opportunity to look back on its history, consider its emergence as an important national institution and reflect on what its future might hold. The contributors to this volume examine the Court and its public law jurisprudence from a range of perspectives, including critical ones.

Featuring authors writing from a diversity of perspectives, geographies and legal traditions, contributing in English and in French, this collection of papers pushes the conversation about the Court forward, identifying areas in which it has been rightly celebrated, but also instances in which its decisions may have fallen short.

The Collection of Papers

1. Vanessa MacDonnell, Noura Karazivan and Naiomi Metallic — The Supreme Court at 150: The Past, Present and Future
2. Jordan Mayer et Patrick Taillon — Les réformes informelles du processus de désignation des juges au Canada à l’épreuve des standards internationaux
3. Andrea Lawlor and Erin Crandall — Public Attitudes Toward the Appointment of Judges to the Supreme Court of Canada: Do Descriptive Representation and Bilingualism Matter?
4. Jeffery Hewitt — Performing Country: Architecture, Law, and Authority at the Supreme Court of Canada
5. Felix Mathieu et Dave Guénette — Le Renvoi relatif à la sécession du Québec : à l’avant-garde pour penser le Canada multinational ?
6. Professor (Emeritus) Gordon Christie — Critical-Realist Analysis of Indigenous Authority over Traditional Territories and Jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada
7. Benjamin Zolf and Nader R. Hasan — Excluding Unconstitutionally Obtained Evidence: The Convergence of the Canadian Grant Test and the American Exclusionary Rule?
8. Kerri A. Froc — Women as Subjects of the Rights of Man, or Subjected to the Rights of Man? The Supreme Court of Canada’s Interpretation of Fundamental Justice and Equal Rights
9. Kate Glover Berger — The Supreme Court and Constitutional Agonism
10. Brenda L. Gunn and Meagan Gillis — Breathing Life into Section 35(1): Reconsidering Van der Peet in Light of the UNDRIP
11. Nathalie J. Chalifour — The Supreme Court of Canada and the Climate Emergency: Federalism at a Crossroads
12. Annamaria Enenajor — Influence and Uncertainty: The Reception of Social Facts Presented by Interveners in Charter Litigation Before the Court
13. Lise Brun — Québec (Procureure générale) c. 9147-0732 Québec inc. et les règles d’interprétation constitutionnelle relatives aux sources non nationales, une ébauche sujette à corrections ?
14. Preston Jordan Lim — Nevsun and Quebec (AG): Duelling Visions of Canadian Courts’ Role in the World
15. Wade Wright and Max Adams — The Supreme Court of Canada’s Use of Unwritten Constitutional Principles to Interpret the Text of the Constitution
16. Naiomi Walqwan Metallic — The Supreme Court of Canada and the Indigenous Right to Self-Government: Past, Present and Future
17. Noura Karazivan — Section 33 and the Override Power: From a Culture of Justification to a Culture of Authority. . . And Back?
18. David P. Taylor — Policing the Event Horizon: Parliamentary Privilege, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Culture of Justification

150 Years of the Supreme Court of Canada / Les 150 ans de la Cour suprême du Canada is a collection of papers developed out of the Supreme Court Law Review, Third Series.