Chief Justice WR Jackett: By the Law of the Land

Christopher English is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the author of A Cautious Beginning: The Emergence of
Newfoundland’s Supreme Court of Judicature in 1791–92.

Wilbur Jackett argued cases for the federal government starting in 1939,
administered the Department of Justice as deputy minister (1957–60),
drafted important statutes such as the Canadian Bill of Rights (1960)
and the Divorce Act (1968), and presided over the Exchequer Court from
1964 until it was reinvented as the Federal Court in 1971. The author, a
leading tax litigator, has enormous respect for his subject: “By ...
1971 Jackett had created a new court, prepared the rules by which it
would operate, and drafted a manual to assist practitioners ... and the
judges themselves.... It was an incredible demonstration of energy,
talent, experience and legal knowledge, a combination that was
unavailable to the country except in Jackett.” In short, although a
mundane counsel in court, Jackett was a fine administrator, a skilled
draftsman, and a “superb” judge.

Although the types of cases Jackett argued and adjudicated were not the
stuff of headlines, Pound’s easy writing style and wit get us through
most of them. Important for the discipline of legal history is his use
of 85 interviewees and correspondents and his success in overcoming
their resistance to being frank. He makes an entertaining and persuasive
guide to the functioning of the Department of Justice (Jackett was one
of 12 lawyers when he joined in 1939) and to the judges of the
Exchequer, Federal, and Supreme Courts.

Jackett, who took a conservative approach to statutory interpretation
and the role of the courts as discoverers and interpreters rather than
framers of the law, seems to have been determined to ignore the petty
jealousies and personal quirks of the predecessor president of
Exchequer, Joseph Thorson, as well as those of Bora Laskin,
Louis-Philippe Pigeon, and the judges of the provincial supreme courts,
who are said to have resented the emergence and the jurisdiction of the
Federal Court. Jackett ran his department, and then his courts, his way.
He was frequently brusque with counsel, free with process, impatient,
and predisposed to demand that he be argued out of a position he had
arrived at through meticulous pretrial preparation.

Given his long experience and personal administrative style, it is
surprising that Jackett resigned on a matter of personal dignity 10
years early in 1979. However, his career since then has been a
satisfying one, and this most private of men has expressed no regrets.
While it may be a caution to others, his working life of more than 80
years, framed by a happy marriage, was obsessed with law, and it
sufficed.