Judges should not view themselves as activists, new Supreme Court Justice Mary Moreau says

CTV QP: One-on-one with Mary Moreau SCC Mary Moreau discusses her new role on the court and why she says judges shouldn't consider themselves activists.

Newly confirmed Supreme Court of Canada Justice Mary Moreau says judges should not see themselves as activists.

Moreau is taking over the seat formerly occupied by Russell Brown, who resigned last June, and her appointment was confirmed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday. She has been chief justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta since 2017.

In a wide-ranging interview airing Sunday, when asked by CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos what she thinks of judicial activism, and whether she views herself as an activist, Moreau said she does “not think that judges should be viewing themselves with that particular adjective.”

“I think you would want to make sure that you're fair,” she said. “That you're considering all points of view.”

“And of course, the big one, is impartiality,” she added. “That's got to be the primary one.”

Moreau said while a seat at the Supreme Court is a “bigger role” than the ones she’s previously occupied — with a more “robust function” looking at Charter and constitutional compliance — she doesn’t believe it’s the job of its judges to engage in judicial activism, and go beyond the law to weigh wider societal implications of their decisions.

She said it is the role of the judicial branch of government to interpret the country’s laws to ensure they’re adhered to and enforced, while it is the job of the legislative branch to pass those laws and the executive branch to implement them.

“When you talk about activism, you have to remember it's, generally speaking, that criticism in the context of charter litigation,” she said. “And it was the legislature, the federal legislators, that set up the tension between the judicial branch and the legislative branch, for example, in terms of what the courts are enabled to do.”

“And so that was a decision that was made, not by judges, but by the legislatures,” she added.

Moreau in the interview also discussed the fact that women now make up the majority of the country’s top bench — for the first time in its 148-year history — which she called a “big evolution for Canada.”

Moreau said there’s been “remarkable” progress that’s taken place in her lifetime, from having just a quarter of her classmates being women when she studied law in the late 1970s, to the current demographics and a majority on the Supreme Court.

“It's obviously something that I'm proud of for Canada,” Moreau said. “And as I mentioned before, you know, I'd like to see the day where we don't have to consider it remarkable.”

Moreau also touched on minority language rights and official languages litigation as a French-speaking judge from Alberta, and the pressing need to fill judicial vacancies across the country.

Watch the full interview on CTV’s Question Period Sunday at 11 a.m. ET.