This is a Hybrid Event

In Person Location: Law Building, Room 201, RSVP to lawevents@queensu.ca
Via Zoom: Register Here

Justice Abella and Feminist Judicial Method

Professor MacDonnell will address how the most well-recognized elements of Justice Rosalie Abella’s judicial approach – beginning with people and their experiences, and being attuned to power differentials and vulnerability – reflect a feminist epistemology that is slowly gaining traction on Canada’s highest court. This way of perceiving the world and the judicial method that flows from it represent a challenge to the prevailing legal orthodoxy. Indeed, Justice Abella faced strong headwinds in insisting that people’s experiences – women’s experiences, workers’ experiences, and the experiences of front-line decision-makers, among others – should be placed front and centre in the legal analysis. Those who argue against this approach have criticized it as ideological and outcome-driven. However, such arguments fall well short of impugning her approach, which is theoretically and methodologically defensible, and largely consistent with the common law method.