OTTAWA—Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin is bringing down the gavel on a 36-year judicial career that spanned 28 years on the top court — 17 of them as the country’s first female, and longest-serving, chief justice.

The legal trailblazer will retire effective Dec. 15, nine months before she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75 although she may sign off on outstanding rulings for another six months after she leaves the bench.

It gives the government time to fill a seat traditionally reserved for a judge from British Columbia and to replace her as chief justice — a chance for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shape the court for generations to come.

By convention, the post has alternated between the most senior anglophone and francophone member of the bench — and it would ordinarily be the turn of Justice Richard Wagner, appointed by Stephen Harper.

But that convention was ditched by Pierre Elliot Trudeau in two of his Supreme Court appointments and may well be set aside by his son if the government opts to make a “major statement on its agenda of inclusion and diversity,” said McGill University political science professor Chris Manfredi.

(Trudeau’s Liberal government already sidestepped convention when it accepted applications from across Canada for what was supposed to be a seat reserved for Atlantic Canada, a move that caused an uproar in that region.)

McLachlin’s departure leaves a huge gap at the top of the judicial branch of government. Her legacy includes seminal judgments on the country’s constitutional framework, charter rights like free speech and security of the person, and Indigenous law.

In a written statement Trudeau thanked McLachlin for her long and dedicated service, and said her judicial accomplishments are “unparalleled in Canadian history” and “reach into every part of our law. Canadians owe her an immense debt.”

Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke to McLachlin Monday morning and told reporters she appreciated her as “a progressive force in terms of Indigenous peoples and advancement of reconciliation and recognition.”

“On the Supreme Court she has helped us as a country define and advance and develop the law and our Constitution, and has made so many seminal judgments that have further defined who we are as Canadians.”

McLachlin transformed the high court into a modern institution at a time when it was under huge political pressure after early charter rulings left conservative lawmakers with buyer’s remorse.

She became the target of Conservative critics for leading a judicially “activist” bench that thwarted the will of Parliament. McLachlin coolly rejected that label and countered it was elected legislators who tasked judges with breathing life into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The 1982 Constitution gave courts the ability to overturn laws that limited rights in an unreasonable and unjustifiable way.

Still, after a heady two decades of romps through charter law, a McLachlin-led court stepped carefully as it navigated the next phase of charter interpretation, emphasizing the need to balance rights and to respect the will of legislatures.

“I think she had the best sense of the strategic role of the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada . . . in calibrating the court’s decisions, keeping them in a range of public opinion that would ensure that the court never really became a target of public outrage of any kind,” said Manfredi.

Toronto criminal defence lawyer Frank Addario, a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said she is “the epitome of a balanced judge. She is the intellectual leader of a measured approach to civil liberties and compassion in relation to individuals.”

University of Ottawa constitutional law professor Sébastien Grammond said under McLachlin, the court adopted a vision of the constitution overall “that was perhaps more balanced than before.” He cited rulings in reference cases on the senate, the Supreme Court and the national securities regulator, and also her rulings that decriminalized assisted suicide and prostitution which further defined what the charter right to “security of the person” means in law.

Nevertheless McLachlin bore the wrath of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, who suggested McLachlin was guilty of improperly lobbying his justice minister against his pick of Marc Nadon to the top court. It blew up in Harper’s face when the legal community in Canada backed the propriety of McLachlin’s actions in flagging a potential legal issue with the appointment.

McLachlin was appointed by former prime minister Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney in 1989 and named chief justice by Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien. She advanced collegial relations among Type A judges and lawyers where cliques had often formed, pushing for consensus and clearer statements of Canadian law. Under her administration, backlogs cleared, and the court made leaps in public outreach, with she and other judges travelling internationally, delivering speeches, doing interviews and joining social media.

Tough on litigators who prattle on, famously reserved in person, McLachlin has a plain-speaking, often wry style in court.

Yet those who know her speak of her easy laugh. McGill University law professor Daniel Jutras, who worked as her executive legal officer for three years, said McLachlin deals with stress by resorting to humour and was an impressive champion for the Canadian charter, Canadian judges and the independence of the judiciary abroad.

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“She’s very charismatic in that environment, which is very odd because she’s a very shy person, she’s very reserved and private.”

McLachlin outlasted 19 of her judicial peers in her 28 years on the top court.

In the announcement of her retirement, McLachlin said, “It has been a great privilege to serve as a justice of the court, and later its chief justice, for so many years. I have had the good fortune of working with several generations of Canada’s finest judges and best lawyers. I have enjoyed the work and the people I have worked with enormously.”

The woman who still taps her roots in Pincher Creek, Alta., as inspiration in speeches, interviews and the art on her office walls, is an avid reader and cook. She lost her first husband to cancer, and later married Frank McArdle, an Ottawa lawyer who proposed to her over an airplane intercom. She has an adult son who is a musician.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair praised Mclachlin’s leadership, saying “She’s left her mark on the legal culture of our country for a full generation, but that will echo for generations to come.”

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She also chaired the Canadian Judicial Council of chief trial and appellate judges, which oversees discipline of judges in Canada; chaired the National Judicial Institute, which oversees judicial training; and chaired the Advisory Council of the Order of Canada, which decides who gets the prestigious national honour.

She stepped aside when the council weighed whether to strip Conrad Black of his Order of Canada medal and pin. Black gave up his Canadian citizenship to accept a British peerage, and then fought to retain his distinction, but was removed from the Order of Canada rolls after his conviction in a U.S. court.

Last fall, in an exclusive interview McLachlin told the Star she still had work to do to integrate an incoming new judge, who turned out to be Trudeau’s first appointment, Malcolm Rowe.

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