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Representing Canadian justice: legal iconography and symbolism at the Supreme Court of Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2017

David DesBaillets
David DesBaillets*
Affiliation:
I have numerous collaborators to thank – to my thesis supervisor Hugo Cyr, first and foremost, for recognising the potential in this paper immediately and encouraging further research. I thank professors Dennis Curtis and Judith Resnik for taking the time to meet with me and edit an early draft of this work. My deepest gratitude goes to Professor Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe for assisting me with his informed critique of some of the key aspects of Canadian architectural history on which I needed a great deal of support. Finally, to the Oxford Centre for Socio Legal Research and Cambridge International Journal of Law in Context for hosting a legal writer's workshop in the summer of 2016, which provided invaluable help in both the refinement and publishing of this paper.
*
d.desbaillets@gmail.com
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Abstract

This paper examines the intersection between a distinctly Canadian legal culture and the legal architecture, symbolism and iconography of its Supreme Court building in Ottawa. I begin from the premise originally put forward in Resnik and Curtis’s study of legal architecture. I proceed with an analysis of the Court’s history, aesthetic and decorative elements, geography and design, artistic and legal vision of the architect, and the social, political and historical contexts in which it was created, as well as key legal and constitutional concepts embodied by the Court’s legal architecture and a comparative analysis with another courthouse in Montreal (the Édifice Ernest Cormier). The paper demonstrates that the challenges of creating a courthouse that reflects the legal traditions and evolving social norms as well as the aspirations of a dynamic, democratic and pluralistic society are almost impossible. It remains a problematic question whether the image of justice that the Court evokes to the observer is the most ‘eloquent three dimensional representation of the role the Supreme Court has assumed in the life of the nation’ (Canada and Supreme Court, 2000, p. 207).

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 132 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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