page_title: Supreme Court of Canada
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Supreme Court of Canada / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The highest court in the land. The courtroom of the Supreme Court of Canada. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
context_page_description: The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada, the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts. Its decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law and binding upon all lower courts of Canada, except to the extent that they are overridden or otherwise made ineffective by federal or provincial legislation.
  The effects of any judicial decision on the common law, on the interpretation of statutes, or on any other application of law, can, in effect, be nullified by legislation, unless the particular decision of the Court in question involves application of the Canadian Constitution, in which case, the decision is completely binding on the legislative branch. This is especially true of decisions which touch upon the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as decisions under the Charter cannot be altered by the legislative branch unless the decision is overridden pursuant to section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
context_section_description: The creation of the Supreme Court of Canada was provided for by the British North America Act, 1867, renamed in 1982 the Constitution Act, 1867. The first bills for the creation of a federal supreme court, introduced in the Parliament of Canada in 1869 and in 1870, were withdrawn. It was not until 8 April 1875 that a bill was finally passed providing for the creation of a Supreme Court of Canada.
  However, prior to 1949, the Supreme Court did not constitute the court of last resort: litigants could appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. As well, some cases could bypass the court and go directly to the Judicial Committee from the provincial courts of appeal. The Supreme Court formally became the court of last resort for criminal appeals in 1933 and for all other appeals in 1949. The last decisions of the Judicial Committee on cases from Canada were made in the mid-1950s, as a result of their being heard in a court of first instance prior to 1949.
  The increase in the importance of the Court was mirrored by the numbers of its members. The Court was established first with six judges, and these were augmented by an additional member in 1927. In 1949, the bench reached its current composition of nine justices.
  Prior to 1949, most of the appointees to the Court owed their position to political patronage. Each judge had strong ties to the party in power at the time of their appointment. In 1973, the appointment of a constitutional law professor Bora Laskin as chief justice represented a major turning point for the Court. Increasingly in this period, appointees either came from academic backgrounds or were well-respected practitioners with several years experience in appellate courts. Laskin's federalist and liberal views were shared by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who recommended Laskin's appointment to the Court.
  The Constitution Act, 1982, greatly expanded the role of the Court in Canadian society by the addition of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which greatly broadened the scope of judicial review. The evolution from the Dickson court (1984–90) through to the Lamer court (1990–2000) witnessed a continuing vigour in the protection of civil liberties. Lamer's criminal law background proved an influence on the number of criminal cases heard by the Court during his time as chief justice. Nonetheless, the Lamer court was more conservative with Charter rights, with only about a 1% success rate for Charter claimants.
  Lamer was succeeded as chief justice by  Beverly McLachlin in January 2000. She was the first woman to hold that position. McLachlin's appointment resulted in a more centrist and unified Court. Dissenting and concurring opinions were fewer than during the Dickson and Lamer Courts. With the 2005 appointments of Justices Louise Charron and Rosalie Abella, the court became the world's most gender-balanced national high court with four of its nine members being female. Justice Marie Deschamps' retirement on 7 August 2012 caused the number to fall to three; however, the appointment of Suzanne Côté on 1 December 2014 restored the number to four. After serving on the Court for 28 years, 259 days (17 years, 341 days as chief justice), McLachlin retired in December 2017. Her successor as chief justice is Richard Wagner.
  Along with the German Federal Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of Canada is one of the three most frequently cited courts in the world.
caption: Courtroom in the current Supreme Court building
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