Nicholas Kasirer nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada
The Faculty of Law is thrilled to announce that former McGill Law professor and dean Nicholas Kasirer, BCL’85, LLB’85, has been nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice Kasirer will replace Justice Clément Gascon, BCL’81, upon his retirement from the bench in September.
A Montreal native and graduate of the McGill Faculty of Law, Justice Kasirer is a specialist in Quebec private law, comparative law, family property law, legal theory and the administration of civil justice. A McGill law professor for 20 years from 1989 to 2009, he also served as Dean of the Faculty from 2003 to 2009. From 1996 to 2003, Justice Kasirer was the Director of what is now the Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law, where he was an editor of a critical edition of the Civil Code of Quebec, and he held a James McGill Chair from 2002 to 2009. He was appointed to the Court of Appeal of Quebec in 2009 and has since rendered judgements in areas spanning private law, criminal law, and public law.
Among other honours, Justice Kasirer has received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, the McGill Alumni Association’s David Johnston Award, the John W. Durnford Teaching Excellence Award, the Prix de la Fondation du Barreau du Québec, and the American Society of Comparative Law's Hessel Yntema Award in Comparative Law. He was named a Titular Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law in 2006, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2008, and received a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from the Université de Sherbrooke in 2012.
“I am proud to see the seat of Justice Gascon, himself an alumnus, be filled by another one of our distinguished alumni, and a former professor and dean,” says Dean Robert Leckey. “Justice Kasirer will bring to his work in Ottawa a profound expertise in and passion for Quebec civil law, as well as the sensitivity to difference and openness to Canada’s multiple legal traditions that have long been characteristic of the McGill Faculty of Law.”
The Faculty of Law extends its warmest congratulations to Justice Kasirer!
