Language, Culture and Interpretation: An Interview with Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache

Andrew Gray and Eleni Yiannakis

ABSTRACT

In 1999, Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache of the Supreme Court of Canada visited the University of Toronto Faculty of Law as the Goodman Fellow. During his visit, Justice Bastarache spoke with two students about several issues that seemed to have engaged him as a lawyer, academic and judge. This conversation, conducted in both English and French, raised a number of questions about the role of language and culture in law-making, particularly in the context of legal judgment. What, for example, are the challenges facing Canadian legal culture generally and judges specifically as a consequence of our linguistic and cultural diversity? What challenges are posed by the growing importance of international law in Canadian legal culture? As a bilingual judge with training in both civil and common law, Justice Bastarache is in a unique position to address these questions.

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Citation: (2000) 58(1) U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 73.
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