A judge on Canada’s highest court has resigned after facing an investigation over his behavior at a US resort.
(Bloomberg) — A judge on Canada’s highest court has resigned after facing an investigation over his behavior at a US resort.
Supreme Court Justice Russell Brown’s resignation was announced Monday by the Canadian Judicial Council, which was preparing a formal review into the matter. The resignation means the review will no longer happen and it gives Prime Minister Justin Trudeau an opportunity to name a sixth judge to the nine-person bench.
The incident took place in January in a lounge at the Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa at Montelucia, where Brown had been attending a banquet and delivering a speech. Police were called after a physical altercation involving Brown and another man, but beyond that the facts of what happened are murky.
Media reports have cited a complainant’s allegations that Brown was intoxicated and allegedly following a group of women. But Brown issued a statement calling those claims “demonstrably false” and said he had been the subject of an unprovoked attack, during which he was punched several times in the head. He said he had been falsely described as the instigator of the conflict.
Brown, 57, had been one of four remaining Supreme Court judges appointed by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Unlike in the US, judges on Canada’s top court face mandatory retirement at age 75.
Trudeau used his last two appointments to make the high court more diverse. In June 2021, he named the first-ever non-White justice to the court and last August added the first Indigenous judge to the bench.
Of the eight judges remaining after Brown’s resignation, four are women, so the appointment of a woman to replace him would give Canada a majority-female Supreme Court for the first time.
(Updates with judge’s age, name of hotel where the incident took place, and additional information on the composition of the court in the last paragraph)
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