The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the
appellate court
A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...
for the province of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. The seat of the court is
Osgoode Hall
Osgoode Hall is a landmark building in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The original -storey building was started in 1829 and finished in 1832 from a design by John Ewart and William Warren Baldwin. The structure is named for William Osgood ...
in
downtown Toronto
Downtown Toronto is the main central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Str ...
, also the seat of the
Law Society of Ontario
The Law Society of Ontario (LSO; french: Barreau de l'Ontario) is the law society responsible for the self-regulation of lawyers and paralegals in the Canadian province of Ontario. Founded in 1797 as the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC; frenc ...
and the Divisional Court of the
Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Description
The
Court
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...
is composed of 22 judicial seats, in addition to one or more justices who sit supernumerary. They hear over 1,500 appeals each year, on issues of
private law
Private law is that part of a civil law legal system which is part of the ''jus commune'' that involves relationships between individuals, such as the law of contracts and torts (as it is called in the common law), and the law of obligations ( ...
,
constitutional law
Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a State (polity), state, namely, the executive (government), executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as th ...
,
criminal law
Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
,
administrative law
Administrative law is the division of law that governs the activities of government agency, executive branch agencies of Forms of government, government. Administrative law concerns executive branch rule making (executive branch rules are gener ...
and other matters. The
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...
hears appeals from less than 3% of the decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, therefore in a practical sense, the Court of Appeal is the last avenue of appeal for most litigants in Ontario.
Among the Court of Appeal's most notable decisions was the 2003 ruling in ''
Halpern v Canada (AG)
''Halpern v Canada (AG)'', 003O.J. No. 2268 is a June 10, 2003 decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in which the Court found that the common law definition of marriage, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, violated s ...
'' that found defining marriage as between one man and one woman to violate
Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Section 15 of the '' Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' contains guaranteed equality rights. As part of the Constitution of Canada, the section prohibits certain forms of discrimination perpetrated by the governments of Canada with the e ...
, legalizing
same-sex marriage in Ontario
Same-sex marriage in Ontario has been legal since June 10, 2003. The first legal same-sex marriages performed in Ontario were of Kevin Bourassa to Joe Varnell, and Elaine Vautour to Anne Vautour, by Reverend Brent Hawkes on January 14, 2001. The ...
and making Canada the first jurisdiction in the world where same-sex marriage was legalized by a court ruling. Among many judges from the Court who have been elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada are Justices
Rosalie Abella
Rosalie Silberman Abella (born July 1, 1946) is a Canadian jurist. In 2004, Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jewish woman and refugee to sit on the Canadian Supreme Court bench. She retired from the fede ...
,
Louise Arbour
Louise Bernice Arbour (born February 10, 1947) is a Canadian lawyer, prosecutor and jurist.
Arbour was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal for Ontario and a former ...
,
Peter Cory
Peter deCarteret Cory, (October 25, 1925 – April 7, 2020) was a puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, from 1989 to 1999.
Early life and education
Born in Windsor, Ontario, the son of Andrew and Mildred (Beresford Howe) Cory, he was edu ...
,
Louise Charron
Louise Charron, (born March 2, 1951) is a Canadian jurist. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in October, 2004, and is the first native-born Franco-Ontarian Supreme Court judge. (This distinction has sometimes been attributed to Lo ...
,
Andromache Karakatsanis
Andromache Karakatsanis (born October 3, 1955) is a Canadian jurist. She was nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada by Stephen Harper in October 2011. She is the first Greek-Canadian judge on the Court.
Early life
Karakatsanis was born in ...
,
Bora Laskin
Bora Laskin (October 5, 1912 – March 26, 1984) was a Canadian jurist who served as the 14th chief justice of Canada from 1973 to 1984. Laskin was appointed a puisne justice of the Supreme Court in 1970, and served on the Ontario Court of A ...
,
Michael Moldaver
Michael Moldaver (born December 23, 1947) is a former Canadian judge. He was a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from his 2011 appointment by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper until his retirement in 2022. Before his elevation to ...
, and
Mahmud Jamal
Mahmud Jamal (born 1967) is a Canadian jurist serving as a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada since 2021. Jamal worked as a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt and taught law at McGill University and Osgoode Hall Law School before he ...
, as well as
Bertha Wilson, who was the first female justice on both the Court of Appeal for Ontario (1975) and the Supreme Court of Canada (1982).
The Court of Appeal derives its jurisdiction from Ontario's
Courts of Justice Act'.
Current judges
Supernumerary Justices
Chief Justices of Ontario
Past judges
Chief Justices of Upper Canada (1792–1841)/Province of Canada (1841–1867)
See also
*
Courts of Ontario
Accounts of the Indigenous law governing dispute resolution in the area now called Ontario, Canada, date from the early to mid-17th century. French civil law courts were created in Canada, the colony of New France, in the 17th century, and com ...
*
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...
Notes
References
External links
Court of Appeal for Ontario official siteOntario Courts websitePlan to webcast Ontario appeal cases delayed
{{Authority control
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
Appeal
In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...
Lists of Canadian judges
1867 establishments in Ontario
Courts and tribunals established in 1867