Former Supreme Court of Canada Justice the Honorable Rosalie Silberman Abella, currently the Samuel LL.M. ’55 S.J.D. ’59 and Judith Pisar Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has been promoted to Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the country’s highest civilian honors.
Abella’s appointment, announced in December by the Governor General of Canada, recognizes her groundbreaking legal career spanning more than five decades and her steadfast commitment to equality, human rights, and social justice.
Appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in 2004, she served nearly 20 years, retiring in 2021, and is widely credited with shaping some of Canada’s most consequential jurisprudence, including decisions that paved the way for same-sex marriage, strengthened women’s workplace rights, expanded employment opportunities for minorities, and enshrined the constitutional right to strike.
The daughter of Holocaust survivors, she was born in a displaced persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany, and came to Canada as a refugee in 1950. She is the first refugee and the first Jewish woman appointed to the bench in Canada. Abella has served on the Harvard Law School faculty since July 2022.
She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1997, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007, and to the American Philosophical Society in 2018. In 2020, she was awarded the Knight Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit by the President of Germany.
The Order of Canada, created in 1967, recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community, and service to the nation. Over its nearly 50-year history, more than 8,000 individuals from diverse sectors of Canadian society have been appointed.
Announcing the new appointments, Governor General Mary Simon emphasized the broader impact of the honorees’ work:
“The Order of Canada fosters a sense of pride and cohesion in our country. Every appointment celebrates not only the talent, expertise and dedication of individuals, but also the countless lives they have touched through their work, vision and contributions. Their commitment extends beyond borders, inspiring progress in our communities, our country and around the world. I offer my heartfelt congratulations to each new appointee on this well-deserved recognition.”
In 1964 she graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music in classical piano. She attended the University of Toronto, where she earned a B.A. in 1967 and an LL.B. in 1970. In law school in the late 1960s, she was one of only seven women in a class of 150.
In 1976, at just 29 years old, she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court, becoming the youngest person ever appointed to the Canadian judiciary and the court’s only woman at the time. After 12 years on the Ontario Court of Appeal, she joined the Supreme Court, where she became the longest-serving judge in Canadian history.
Beyond the bench, Abella’s influence has been equally profound. As the sole commissioner of the 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, she travelled across Canada documenting systemic barriers faced by women, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups. She coined the term “employment equity,” producing a landmark report that reshaped national conversations about discrimination and ultimately informed Supreme Court equality jurisprudence under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
She has written over 90 articles and written or co-edited four books. She was made a senior fellow of Massey College in 1989, has given, among others, the Harlan Lecture at Princeton, the Ryan Lecture at Georgetown, the Winchester Lecture at Oxford, the Anderson Lecture at Yale, the Robert L. Levine Distinguished Lecture at Fordham Law School, the Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture at Brandeis University, and the David J. Bederman Lecture in International Law at Emory University School of Law.
In addition to her professorship at Harvard, she is a senior research scholar at Yale Law School and distinguished visiting jurist at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. In the spring of 2022, she was the William Hughes Mulligan Distinguished Visiting Professor in International Studies at Fordham Law School.
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