Charles Gonthier, former SCC judge, dies

OTTAWA_ Charles Gonthier, a former Supreme Court judge ... has died.

Gonthier passed away at age 80 on Thursday.

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Gonthier sat on the Supreme Court of Canada from 1989 to 2003.
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Gonthier was named to the Supreme Court of Canada on Feb. 1, 1989, after being appointed to the Quebec Court of Appeal the previous year.

He first became a judge at the Quebec Superior Court in 1974.

Gonthier was known for dissenting from the court's majority, offering a more conservative interpretation the individual rights guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In 1999, he argued in a dissent that provincial legislation excluding same-sex couples from the legal definition of marriage did not breach the Charter.

The best-known decision in which he wrote for the majority of the court was the Thibaudeau v. Canada in 1995, a ruling that upheld Income Tax Act provisions that taxed the recipients, not the payers, of alimony and support monies.

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