The Marshall file

JAMES RUSK
Aug 10, 2006
Globe & Mail

While Mr. Justice T. David Marshall of the Ontario Superior Court has come to public attention with his interventions in the Caledonia land dispute, he has been a prominent jurist for two decades.

Before Judge Marshall, though, there was Dr. Marshall. He graduated from medical school in 1963, attended law school and was admitted to the bar in 1972. For the next decade, he practised in Haldimand County as a doctor in the morning and a lawyer in the afternoon.

He went on to head the National Judicial Institute, where many of Canada's judges receive training, in the late 1980s and 1990s. He also earned a reputation as a doughty defender of judicial independence.

In fact, he wrote a book on the subject -- Judicial Conduct and Accountability -- in which he warned that the power of chief justices to dispense assignments or promotions could threaten the independence of judges by turning them into seekers of favours from the boss.

Judge Marshall was also Ontario's first doctor and lawyer to be a coroner -- he wrote another book on law for coroners -- and even now, he takes breaks from the bench to fly to Latin America and practise with a team of medical missionaries.

Judge Marshall also wrote a short history of Haldimand County, published in 2003.

His deep roots in the region have prompted accusations of possible bias on both sides.

For one, he has been recognized for past volunteer work by being named an honorary chief of the Six Nations.

When he moved back home to sit on the bench, he moved into a family property that lies within the Haldimand Grant, the vast parcel of land that lies at the core of the legal dispute in Caledonia.

In March, during court proceedings on his February injunction to clear native protesters from a building site, he was challenged that this could create an apprehension of bias in any ruling he made on the Caledonia dispute. He rejected the argument, noting that most local judges own land on the 385,000-hectare tract.