Scott, Manitoba's longest-serving chief justice, passed away last week at the age of 86
Richard Scott, Manitoba’s longest-serving chief justice and one of the longest-serving members of the Canadian Judicial Council, passed away on Nov. 21. He was 86 years old.
Reflecting on Scott’s legacy, Glenn Joyal, Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench of Manitoba, says the late justice “personified, in many respects, the judge you would want to appear before and the judge you would want to work with.
“He was wise, he was temperate, and he was also forward-looking. He combined all of that,” Joyal says.
Joyal currently serves as the first vice chair of the CJC and chairperson of the council’s judicial conduct committee – two positions Scott held during his nearly three-decade tenure at the CJC. While Joyal has appeared in Scott’s court as a lawyer and briefly worked with him at the Manitoba Court of Appeal after he took the bench, the justice says he felt Scott’s influence most when they worked alongside one another at the CJC.
There, Scott was “doing much of what it is that I'm now doing,” Joyal says. “I recognize the work that he did and how hard he worked at it.”
Joyal adds, “His legacy is multidimensional, both as a jurist in his own court, but also as a member of a national institution that is in existence to help improve the judiciary, its perceived legitimacy, and the public confidence that we obviously need to ensure and preserve our independence.”
Scott received his law degree from the University of Manitoba in 1963. He started his career practising civil litigation with Thompson Dilts Jones Hall Dewar and Ritchie, now known as Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP, and was appointed Queen’s counsel in 1977 before joining the Court of Queen’s Bench in Manitoba in 1985.
Later the same year, Scott was promoted to associate chief justice of the court. In 1990, he was appointed to the Manitoba Court of Appeal as the 10th Chief Justice of Manitoba, where he served until his retirement in 2013. Scott later joined Hill Sokalski Walsh Olson as senior counsel, working in arbitration and mediation.
Scott was a member of the CJC throughout his tenure on the Manitoba Court of Appeal, where he served on multiple committees, including the executive, judicial conduct, and judicial independence committees.
Among his most notable accomplishments at the CJC was his “seminal work” in the 1990s on the “Ethical Principles for Judges,” a framework outlining the ethical obligations of judges across Canada, Joyal says. It was “the first time in Canada we undertook such a project… that first crack at it was very important,” Joyal says, adding that the project “continues to have a long-lasting effect on how we observe our role.”
Joyal says Scott “made some tremendous contributions” to the legal profession. “I've known him and known what he's done and his contributions for many years,” he says. “My admiration for him is certainly echoed by members of the bar who appeared before him.”
