Supreme Court of Canada Appointment Process - 2016 (Appointment of the Honourable Malcolm Rowe) [ARCHIVED CONTENT]

On October 28, 2016, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of the Honourable Malcolm Rowe to the Supreme Court of Canada (view Prime Minister's press release, October 28, 2016). This followed the new and improved process (view Prime Minister's press release, August 2, 2016) whereby an independent and non-partisan Advisory Board identified suitable candidates for appointment to the court. Any qualified Canadian lawyer or judge could apply to fill the vacancy on the court through the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs.

The seven-member Advisory Board was tasked with reviewing candidates and submitting a shortlist of three to five individuals for consideration by the Prime Minister.

To enhance transparency, the report of the Advisory Board, the assessment criteria guiding its work, the questionnaire that all applicants had to answer, and certain answers provided to the questionnaire by the Prime Minister’s eventual nominee were all made public and can be found in the following pages.