James W. O’Reilly (born November 13, 1955) is a former Judge of the Federal Court (Canada) and the current Senate Ethics Officer in the Senate of Canada.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Western Ontario before obtaining his Bachelor of Laws from Osgoode Hall Law School and a Master of Laws from the University of Ottawa.
O'Reilly was called to the bar in Ontario in 1985 and went on to have a varied legal career, serving as Consultant at the Law Reform Commission of Canada (now the Law Commission of Canada), Legal Advisor in the Department of Justice (Canada), sole practitioner specializing in legal policy and law reform, Executive Legal Officer at the Supreme Court of Canada, Associate Executive Director at the National Judicial Institute, and Counsel to the Collusion Investigation in London, England. [1] He is an author of many publications and has taught at various universities and law schools across Canada. [2]
He was appointed to the Federal Court of Canada (now the Federal Court) in 2002 and the Court Martial Appeal Court of Canada in 2003; he was a Member of the Court until his retirement on January 9, 2025.
O'Reilly was the President of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice (CIAJ) from 2019-2021, [3] and has served as co-chair of CIAJ's Judgment Writing Seminar. He is also a Fellow of McLaughlin College at York University [4] and the recipient of the 2023-2024 Inns of Court Judicial Fellowship at the University Of London's Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. [5] [6]
On January 10, 2025, O'Reilly was appointed Senate Ethics Officer by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. [7]
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts. The Supreme Court is bijural, hearing cases from two major legal traditions and bilingual, hearing cases in both official languages of Canada.
The Faculty of Law is one of the professional graduate schools of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the oldest law school in Canada. 180 candidates are admitted for any given academic year. For the year 2021 class, the acceptance rate was 10%.
The chief justice of Canada is the presiding judge of the nine-member Supreme Court of Canada, the highest judicial body in Canada. As such, the chief justice is the highest-ranking judge of the Canadian court system. The Supreme Court Act makes the chief justice, a Crown in Council appointment, meaning the Crown acting on the advice of the prime minister and minister of justice. The chief justice serves until they resign, turn 75 years old, die, or are removed from office for cause. By tradition, a new chief justice is chosen from among the court's incumbent puisne justices.
Osgoode Hall Law School, commonly shortened to Osgoode, is the law school of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is home to the Law Commission of Ontario, the Journal of Law and Social Policy, and the Osgoode Hall Law Journal. A variety of J.D. LL.M. and Ph.D. degrees in law are available.
Beverley Marian McLachlin is a Canadian jurist and author who served as the 17th chief justice of Canada from 2000 to 2017. She is the longest-serving chief justice in Canadian history and the first woman to hold the position.
The Schulich School of Law is the law school of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Founded in 1883 as Dalhousie Law School, it is the oldest university-based common law school in Canada. It adopted its current name in October 2009 after receiving a $20-million endowment from Canadian businessman and philanthropist Seymour Schulich.
The following list outlines the structure of the federal government of Canada, the collective set of federal institutions which can be grouped into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. In turn, these are further divided into departments, agencies, and other organizations which support the day-to-day function of the Canadian state.
Frank Iacobucci is a former Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1991 until his retirement from the bench in 2004. He was the first Italian-Canadian, allophone judge on the court. Iacobucci was also the first judge on the Supreme Court to have been born, raised and educated in British Columbia. Iacobucci has had a distinguished career in private practice, academia, the civil service and the judiciary.
The court system of Canada is made up of many courts differing in levels of legal superiority and separated by jurisdiction. In the courts, the judiciary interpret and apply the law of Canada. Some of the courts are federal in nature, while others are provincial or territorial.
Sir Charles Michael Dennis Byron is a former president of the Caribbean Court of Justice. He also serves as President of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute, and is former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and former Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. He was born in Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis.
The University of Ottawa Faculty of Law is the law school at the University of Ottawa, located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1953, the faculty is today divided into Civil Law and Common Law sections, the two formally recognized legal traditions in Canada.
Sven Erik Holmes is an American attorney and jurist who served as United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
Marianne Rivoalen is the Chief Justice of Manitoba. She was appointed on June 1, 2023. She is the first woman to head the Manitoba judiciary.
P. Colleen Suche, was appointed a judge of the Manitoba Court of King's Bench on July 17, 2002. She replaced Madam Justice Barbara Hamilton, upon her appointment to the Manitoba Court of Appeal. In 2005, Madam Justice Suche also became a deputy judge of the Nunavut Court of Justice.
Mary Elizabeth Dawson was a Canadian lawyer and civil servant who was the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner of Canada. She was appointed under the Parliament of Canada Act on July 9, 2007 as the Conflict of Interest Act came into force until her term of office came to an end on January 8, 2018.
Sidney Bryan Linden is a former Chief Judge of the Ontario Court of Justice and a judicial reformer and administrator in the province of Ontario, Canada.
The Honourable or The Honorable is an honorific style that is used as a prefix before the names or titles of certain people, usually with official governmental or diplomatic positions.
Grant A. Huscroft is a Canadian jurist and legal scholar. He has served as a justice of the Court of Appeal for Ontario since 2014.