Minister of Justice David Lametti has announced two new judicial appointments in Ontario under the new judicial application process introduced in 2016.
Minister of Justice David Lametti has announced two new judicial appointments in Ontario under the new judicial application process introduced in 2016.
Mahmud Jamal, a partner at Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in Toronto, has been appointed a justice of appeal of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. Jamal replaces Justice Gladys Pardu, who elected to become a supernumerary judge effective Jan. 1, 2019.
Jamal was born in Kenya and raised in England before received a BA from the University of Toronto, LLB and BCL degrees from the Faculty of Law, McGill University and an LLM from Yale Law School, which he attended on a Fulbright Scholarship. He served as law clerk to Justice Melvin Rothman of the Quebec Court of Appeal and Justice Charles Gonthier of the Supreme Court of Canada. He also practised with Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP in the fields of appellate litigation, constitutional and public law, class actions and commercial litigation.
Jamal was a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, The Advocates' Society and the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. He was also a member of the Supreme Court Advocacy Institute and a trustee of the Canadian Business Law Journal.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Christie, a judge of the Provincial Court of Ontario, has been appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario. She replaces Justice Guy P. Di Tomaso, who elected to become a supernumerary judge effective Sept. 30, 2018.
Christie received a B.A from the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton. She attended York University, Osgoode Hall Law School and was called to the bar in October 2002. She joined Greenspan, Henein and White (now Greenspan Partners LLP) as a student placement and remained at the firm throughout her career as a lawyer, ultimately becoming partner in 2013.
She has appeared as counsel at all levels of court in Ontario (including multiple jury trials), the Court of Appeal for Ontario and the Supreme Court of Canada. She was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice in Gore Bay on Manitoulin Island in 2017 and presided in three locations every week — including Gore Bay, Wikwemikong and Espanola. She was involved in the implementation of the first Indigenous court for the Ontario Court of Justice in the Northeast region, which had its first sitting in January 2019, with Christie presiding.
