Canadian Lawyer

bit permanent — I wasn't too interested in that one. Or you have retirement. . . . I opted for retirement." Charron became eligible to retire with a full pension at 58. It had been decades since she had taken more than a couple of weeks off in a row. While she and her husband, retired police officer William Blake, are both in good health, she knew that the free time she had long envisaged spending together would not be possible if she continued at the court. "I felt at the top of my game. That's the time to jump off the plane — with your parachute — and see where it leads," Charron says with a laugh and a twinkle in her eyes. While she knows the idea has detrac- Justice Louise Charron during her 2004 swearing in ceremony at the Supreme Court in Ottawa. She was the first Franco-Ontarian appointed to the top court. the judges appointed to fill one of two vacancies when she and fellow justice Ian Binnie stepped down. In doing so, Charron joined a trend of top court justices retiring well before mandatory retirement age and going on to play other legal roles. In 2004, Louise Arbour left the court at the age of 57 to become United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In 2009, she was named presi- dent and CEO of the International Crisis Group headquartered in Brussels. In 2008, Michel Bastarache retired from the court at 61 and moved to Heenan Blaikie LLP in Ottawa as a counsel in its litigation group. In fact, since 1990, only three of 13 judges who left the Supreme Court stayed on until or around their 75th birthdays. Nine retired before that and one, justice John Sopinka, died in office in 1997. Charron says the reasons judges leave Canada's top court early are as varied as the judges themselves. In her own case, however, she says she might have been willing to stay on the bench if she could have taken a one-year sabbatical or become a supernumerary judge. "If there had been an option, depending on how it would work, I think I might have opted for the sabbatical." For Supreme Court judges, it's all or nothing, Charron told Canadian Lawyer in an exclusive interview in February. There's not much opportunity to reduce your workload or take a step back. "Even if I wanted to take one year off to recharge my batteries, on the Supreme Court you've got three choices. You have a sick leave, which is not a choice because you are sick and your colleagues are left with more work, you're not being replaced. Or you have death, but that's a 28 A PRIL 2012 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com tors, Charron would like to see a system of sabbaticals or supernumerary part- time work for top court judges. While some contend the court needs continu- ity and judges could fall behind if they were away for a year, Charron argues jurisprudence does not "start at point zero" when a judge leaves and the court is bound by its precedents. "I personally would not think that it would affect in a negative way for judges to be away from it for some cases and not always be part of the process. Because they will not be always part of the process in the big picture anyways. If they drop dead from overwork they won't be." HARD WORK I f there is one thing that Louise Charron is no stranger to, it's hard work. The first Franco-Ontarian named to the Supreme Court, Charron started out in a modest fam- ily in the northern Ontario town of Sturgeon Falls. Charron says she fought her parents' decision to send her to the private French-language Pensionnat Notre-Dame de Lourdes because she pre- ferred the local English high school where there were boys. But she credits the Filles de la Sagesse (Daughters of Wisdom) nuns who ran the school with providing her with many of the skills that served her well during her career. "The education I received there was excellent. They did not want any of their students to come out at a disadvantage. It was a French school and in a situation where we are the minority, they made sure that once we FRED CHARTRAND/REUTERS

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