SYMPOSIUM HONOURING THE LATE MR. JUSTICE KENNETH LYSYK

November 5 & 6

UBC Faculty of Law

View Website relating to the event.

Download the CIAJ program.

On November 5 and 6, 2004, the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law and the  Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice will be sponsoring a symposium to honour the memory and the contribution to the law of the late Mr. Justice Kenneth Lysyk.  Mr. Justice Lysyk served as Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1976 - 1982 and was President of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice from 1989 - 1991. 

The symposium is organized around themes to which Ken Lysyk made a special contribution as a scholar, as an advocate and as a judge.  As a scholar he was renowned for his work in aboriginal law, federalism and conflict of laws, and these subjects will be  explored in the morning and afternoon of November 5.  Ken Lysyk made many important contributions as a lawyer, and especially as counsel for his native province of Saskatchewan, which he served as Deputy Attorney-General from 1972-1976.  None was more significant, however, than the contribution he made as counsel for Saskatchewan in the Patriation Reference, [1981] 1 S.C.R. 783, and part of the afternoon of November 5 will be taken up with a retrospective on the Patriation Reference.

As a member of the British Columbia Supreme Court from 1983 until his untimely death in 2003, Mr. Justice Lysyk rendered many notable decisions, but his judgments concerning the application of section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms outside the realm of the criminal law are particularly interesting and the symposium will dedicate part of the morning of November 6 to an exploration of this subject.  Mr. Justice Lysyk also played a significant role in the expansion of opportunities for judicial education, both at a national level and internationally.  In addition to his work with the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, Mr. Justice Lysyk served as Associate Director of the National Judicial Institute from 1996 - 1998 and was actively involved with the international judicial education efforts of the International; Commission of Jurists and the Commonwealth of Learning.  The final session of the symposium on November 6 is therefore dedicated to the subject of judicial education.

The Faculty of Law would like to thank the following sponsors of the Lysyk Symposium:

The organizers of the symposium, Associate Dean Robin Elliot and Professor Philip Bryden, who is one of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice's Vice-Presidents, have been especially gratified by the enthusiastic response of the individuals who have been invited to take part in the program.  Among the notable speakers who have already agreed to make presentations are Emeritus Professor Allan Cairns of U.B.C. and Professor John Borrows of the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, who will comment on aboriginal law; Professor Peter Hogg of Osgoode Hall Law School and Professor Jean Leclair of the Faculté de droit, Université de Montréal, who will speak about federalism; and Professor John Whyte, Senior Policy Fellow at the Saskatchewan Institute of Public Policy, University of Regina, and the Honourable Roy Romanow, former Premier of Saskatchewan, who will take part in the retrospective on the Patriation Reference.  Members of the U.B.C. Faculty of Law who have so far agreed to give papers include Professors Joost Blom and Elizabeth Edinger, who will address the subject of conflict of laws, and Professors Philip Bryden and Margot Young, who will discuss section 7 of the Charter outside the field of criminal law. Chief Justice Lance Finch has agreed to make some welcoming remarks and Justice Carol Huddart, Tom Berger, O.C., Q.C., and Dean Emeritus Bertie McClean will offer personal retrospectives on Justice Lysyk's life in the law.

The symposium will be held at the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law and will be open to the public.  In the coming months, registration information will be posted on the Faculty's website as will more details of the final program.  The Law Faculty and the Institute hope that members of the legal community in British Columbia and elsewhere will welcome this opportunity to honour Ken Lysyk's memory and to take part in what we anticipate will be a fascinating discussion of the important subjects to which he made such an outstanding contribution.