Supreme Court Justice John Sopinka dies at 64 (11/30/97)

Supreme Court Justice John Sopinka dies at 64

by Christopher Guly

OTTAWA - John Sopinka "was one of the good guys," said former Canadian Attorney General Ramon Hnatyshyn in recalling the man he had named to the country's highest court nine years ago.

"He was not reticent about expressing and dealing with important issues," said Mr. Hnatyshyn, Canada's former governor general. "He had boundless energy, and it was pretty hard to match him. He was always available and accessible."

Supreme Court of Canada Justice Sopinka died of complications from a rare blood disease in Ottawa at 6:30 a.m. on November 24. He was 64. News of his death sent shock waves from Canada's capital city, where flags at the Supreme Court building were flying at half-staff, to the Ukrainian Canadian community across the country.

According to the Toronto-based daily Globe and Mail's front-page story, "Friends first noticed Judge Sopinka's energy begin to falter early this autumn, upon his return from a trip to Ukraine. An emergency blood transfusion in recent days failed to arrest the advance of the disease."

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting in Vancouver, hailed Justice Sopinka as an "exceptional jurist," while the remaining eight justices publicly mourned losing a "loyal" friend and colleague.

The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association issued a news release calling Mr. Sopinka an "irreplaceable advocate and friend." He did, after all, work with the UCCLA, when it was a federation within the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, in representing the community at the 1985 Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals headed by Justice Jules Deschênes.

Three years later, Mr. Sopinka was serving as lead counsel at an International Commission on the Ukrainian Famine when Mr. Hnatyshyn invited him to join the Canadian Supreme Court.

It was the second time Mr. Hnatyshyn had offered him a judicial appointment, Justice Sopinka recalled in an interview with The Weekly two years ago. The first came in the mid-1980s, when Mr. Sopinka was asked to sit on Ontario's highest judicial body, the Court of Appeal. Mr. Sopinka declined, preferring to continue his Toronto law practice.

"Not to look too disrespectful, I told Ray that if he offered me a spot on the Supreme Court, maybe I would take a different view," said Mr. Sopinka.

When a vacancy occurred on the high court in 1988 and the hole that needed to be filled had to come from a candidate in Ontario, Mr. Hnatyshyn found his ideal appointee in Mr. Sopinka.

"Looking back on John Sopinka's record, he proved to be a first-rate appointment," said Mr. Hnatyshyn, who had spoken to Mr. Sopinka on the telephone a week before Mr. Sopinka's death. "When you make appointments to the Supreme Court, you look at the question of abilities and competence, and you want to make sure the person reflects the diversity of Canada, which was something he was able to bring to the court as well."

As Mr. Hnatyshyn became the first Ukrainian Canadian to fill the country's top job as constitutional head of state seven years ago, Mr. Sopinka became the first member of the community to sit on the country's highest court two years prior to that.

Mr. Sopinka was born in Saskatchewan, in the small town of Broderick, where his ethnic Ukrainian parents, Metro (who died in 1990) and Nancy (who died in 1974), settled after arriving from Wislok, Poland, in 1928. Only Metro attended school, for a year, but he and his wife were determined their son, one of six children, would receive a first-class education.

When Mr. Sopinka was 7 years old, his family moved to Hamilton, where his father was employed as a steelworker. At 15, young John was becoming somewhat of a prodigy, playing violin with Hamilton's philharmonic orchestra.

After graduating summa cum laude with an undergraduate arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1955, Mr. Sopinka was accepted into the university's law school. To augment the scholarship he received, he got a job playing defensive halfback with the Toronto Argonauts that year. "I missed a lot of classes, but I would get notes from my classmates," confessed Mr. Sopinka in 1995, who later went on to author one of the most definitive legal textbooks on rules of evidence.

The future Supreme Court justice almost missed graduating from law school in the process, when he was transferred to a rival Canadian Football League team, the Montreal Alouettes. Fortunately, Montreal never made it to the playoffs, and Mr. Sopinka was able to complete his third year in law school.

Following his 1958 graduation, Mr. Sopinka began a 28-year career in litigation that would make him one of Canada's highest-profiled lawyers. He represented the Aga Khan; former federal Cabinet Minister Sinclair Stevens during an inquiry into conflict-of-interest allegations; and nurse Susan Nelles, who was charged, and later vindicated, in the deaths of four babies at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

When he was named to the Supreme Court, Mr. Sopinka became the first non-judge elevated to the top jurist's job in 31 years.

Mr. Sopinka's death creates a vacancy on the nine-member Supreme Court that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien will be nevertheless pressed to fill quickly.

On February 16 the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on whether Québec can secede from Canada unilaterally, and Justice Lamer has made it known that he wants nine judges to hear the historic case. Prof. Edward Ratushny of Ottawa University said that Mr. Lamer's position makes it likely that these hearings will be postponed.

Prof. Ratushny remembered Justice Sopinka as a populist judge, dedicated to demystifying the legal process and opening up the court he served on. "He spoke out frequently in favor of judges participating in society and not cloistering themselves in their chambers," Prof. Ratushny told the Globe and Mail on November 24.

"He made people feel very comfortable with a folksy kind of manner that disguised his brilliant and incisive mind," Prof. Ratushny added.

The chairman of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, John Gregorovich, said: "Justice Sopinka was a thoughtful and learned judge, and yet always a very approachable man. ... Our entire community joins in mourning this irreplaceable advocate and friend."

Justice Sopinka's body lay in state in the Supreme Court building on November 26; the funeral was to be held in Oakville, Ontario, outside of Toronto, on November 29.

Mr. Sopinka leaves behind his wife of 40 years, Marie, and two children, Melanie and Randall.

Also in mourning are many friends, including Mr. Hnatyshyn. "He was a wonderful and good friend, and I am very proud of my friendship with John Sopinka," he said.

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