Charles Dubin

Charles Dubin - a legendary lawyer and one-time Chief Justice of Ontario - died this morning.

I remember meeting him as a law clerk and being immediately impressed with his keen wit and tough minded approach to law. He was a remarkable judge.

Mr. Dubin, 87, was very well known in the legal world for keen intellect and a brusque, no-nonsense manner. However, he was perhaps best known to the public for a high profile commission he headed in the 1980s. Known as the Dubin Inquiry, the commission was spawned by a celebrated incident in which sprinter Ben Johnson lost his gold medal at the 1988 Olympic Games because a banned drug was detected in his urine samples.

In a ground breaking report, Mr. Dubin exposed doping secrets that had been unknown outside the secretive world of track and field. He recommended a broad range of anti-doping measures.

In 1981, Mr. Dubin held an inquiry into federal inquiry into aviation safety that strongly recommended a more significant role for enforcement of safety measures.

Born in Hamilton, Ont., in 1921, he was appointed to the Ontario Court of appeal in 1973. He was appointed Associate Chief Justice in 1987, and Chief Justice in 1990. He served until 1996.

In his early days Mr. Dubin faced significant anti-semitic bias. He was a pioneer as a high profile litigator. It seems hard to imagine but just a few year ago open racial and religious bias was seen even from the Bench in Ontario.

In 1997, he was made an officer of the Order of Canada.

James Morton
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