Hon. Rosalie Rilberman Abella

Abella is not only the first Jewish woman appointed to the court, but also at 29 years old, was the first pregnant person appointed to the judiciary in Canada. She was the chair and author of the Ontario Study on Access to Legal Services by the Disabled in 1983 and the sole Commissioner of the 1984 Royal Commission on Equality in Employment, creatin the term and concept on “employment equity”. The theories of “equality” and “discrimination” she developed in her report were adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada in its first decision dealing with equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1989. Abella has also been active in Canadian judicial education, organizing the first judicial seminar in which all levels of the judiciary participated and the first national conference for Canada’s female judges.

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