Rosalie Abella

ROSALIE ABELLA is a Canadian jurist. She was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany, where her father was defense counsel in the Allied Zone of Southwest Germany. She moved to Canada in 1950. She attended the University of Toronto, where she obtained a B.A. in 1967 and a B.L. in 1970.
Abella was called to the Ontario bar in 1972. She practised civil and family law until 1976, when at the age of 29 she was appointed to the Ontario Family Court (now part of the Ontario Court of Justice), becoming both the youngest and first pregnant judge in Canadian history. She was appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1992.

She has acted as chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, the Ontario Study into Access to Legal Services by the Disabled and the Ontario Law Reform Commission, and as a member of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and of the judicial inquiry into the Donald Marshall, Jr. case. She is considered one of Canada's foremost experts on human rights law, and has taught at McGill Law School in Montreal. In 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed Abella to the Supreme Court of Canada. She is eligible to serve on the Supreme Court until July 1, 2021.
Abella is the recipient of 35 honorary degrees, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. She was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.In May 2016, she was awarded an honorary degree from Yale University.becoming the first Canadian woman to earn such an honour. She has been a judge of the Giller Prize, and is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music in classical piano.
In January 2017, North western Pritzker School of Law’s Center for International Human Rights named her the Global Jurist of the Year in 2016 for her life long commitment to human rights and international criminal justice.