Legal Symposium in Honour of Supreme Court of Canada Justice Charles D. Gonthier

The Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ) is organizing a legal symposium honouring the late Justice Charles G. Gonthier at McGill University on May 20-21:

"Charles Gonthier was known to the legal community as a gentleman, scholar, philosopher and original thinker. The basis of his worldview was founded upon the ideas of fraternity and community. In a context which focuses on the immediate needs of the individual, Charles Gonthier was concerned with the responsible development of a just society in the long term. As such, he devoted much of his later years to the area of sustainable development law."

Gonthier who sat on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1989 to 2003, passed away in 2009.

Many current Supreme Court of Canada Justices will be speaking at the event.

Justice Gonthier was called to the Quebec Bar in 1952 after graduating from McGill Law.

He was named a judge of the Quebec Superior Court in 1974. During his tenure, he became president of the CIAJ.

He was appointed to the Quebec Court of Appeal in 1988, and joined the Supreme Court of Canada the following year.

After retiring from the country's highest court, he became:

• Chair of the Board of McGill's Centre for International Sutainable Development Law
• Wainwright Senior Research Fellow at the same University
• Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's national cryptologic agency