JOHN C. TAIT MEMORIAL LECTURE
IN LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY
FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION -
A CONSTITUTION?
Delivered before the Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal,
Quebec, Thursday, October 17th, 2002, by
The Right Honourable Gordon, Lord Slynn of Hadley
A Lord of Appeal, United Kingdom, Chairman of the Executive
Council of the International Law Association, President of the International
Federation for European Law, President of the Statute Law Society
McGill University, October 17, 2002
PRINCIPALS:
Stephen Scott, Professor, Law Faculty, McGill University
Morris Rosenberg, Deputy Minister, Department of Justice
Peter Leuprecht, Dean, Law Faculty, McGill University
Lecturer:
The Rt. Hon. Gordon, Lord Slynn of Hadley, A Lord of Appeal, House of Lords,
United Kingdom
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Stephen Scott (Professor of Law, McGill University)
My lords, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Stephen Scott, and
I teach in this Faculty.
On behalf of the Department of Justice, represented here this
evening by Deputy Minister Morris Rosenberg, and the McGill University Faculty
of Law, represented by Dean Peter Leuprecht, I wish you a warm welcome to
the third John C. Tait Memorial Lecture on Law and Public Policy.
To begin with, I would ask the Deputy Minister to say a few
words about the life and work of John Tait and this memorial lecture series
established in his honour.
Mr. Rosenberg
Morris Rosenberg (Deputy Minister of Justice)
Thank you very much, Professor Scott. It is always a pleasure
for me to return to McGill University, where I did my undergraduate Arts degree.
I am particularly happy to be here today for this third lecture
held in honour of John Tait. In a certain sense, it is thanks to this place
that John was able to leave the impressive legacy he did, for he was himself
a graduate of the McGill Faculty of Law.
John was a distinguished jurist and public servant. Among other
things, he served as Deputy Solicitor General of Canada, Deputy Minister of
Justice, and Senior Advisor and Coordinator of Security and Intelligence at
the Privy Council Office. John was not only a close friend but a mentor to
me and to many others in the Department of Justice and the government as a
whole. It is hard to believe that it has already been three years since his
death. His wisdom, his leadership, and his keen sense of professional ethics
are missed greatly indeed.
I am happy to see several members of the Tait family here with
us this evening, notably John’s wife, Sonia Plourde, his brother, David,
and his wife, Andrée. Thank you very much for coming once again and
helping us to honour John’s legacy.
And that legacy is indeed vast. He made outstanding contributions
in the most important areas of public policy, including the development of
the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which changed the relationship
between citizens and governments in Canada. He was instrumental in developing
access-to-information and privacy legislation, which further defined citizen
and government relations. He earned the respect of the Aboriginal community
during a time marked by distrust, and helped clean up, so to speak, the government’s
approach to environmental issues.
Throughout his career, both at Justice and elsewhere in government,
he grappled with how to achieve effective law enforcement and national security
within a framework of democratic values and respect for the rule of law. One
of John’s most enduring contributions was his leadership of a task force
on public service ethics and values. The report published by that task force
under the title A Strong Foundation, but more commonly referred to
as the “Tait Report” or just “Tait,” continues to influence
in a very real way policy discussions around reforms to the Canadian Public
Service.
John’s legacy is also reflected in the way that we have
seen fit to honour it. His leadership on ethics and values is commemorated
in two separate government awards. The Department of Justice bestows the John
Tait Award annually on the employee who best exemplifies the highest standards
of ethical, professional conduct and competence and demonstrates value of
service to the Canadian public and government in the discharge of his or her
duties.
Second, the Clerk of the Privy Council, the most senior public
servant in Canada, instituted in 1999 the John Tait Memorial Head of the Public
Service Award for values and ethics. This award is presented to the individual
or group who best represents the personal qualities of John Tait, particularly
his contribution to public service and its values. Among those values are
integrity, professionalism, leadership, fairness and devotion to public service.
As well, the Canadian Bar Association has established the John
Tait Award of Excellence to honour the accomplishments of outstanding public
sector lawyers in Canada.
There are also two John Tait Memorial Lecture series: an Annual
John Tait Memorial Lecture hosted by the Canadian Association of Security
and Intelligence Studies, which commemorates John’s remarkable role in
that field, I had the honour of delivering this year’s lecture, in fact;
and, of course, the John C.Tait Memorial Lecture in Law and Public Policy,
jointly sponsored by McGill University and the Department of Justice.
Lord Slynn, from whom you will hear in a few moments, joins
a select group of people who have presented in John Tait’s honour. John
would have appreciated these lectures and the varied and interesting questions
posed.
The first lecture was held here in the year 2000, when Dr. Geoffrey
Marshall talked about the constitutional process in the United Kingdom. He
covered the constitutional revolution of the Westminster model and the constitutional
processes in the Commonwealth and the European community.
Last year in Ottawa, the Right Honourable Kim Campbell focused
on issues of great importance to the Department of Justice and the legal community
— inclusive justice, fair relations between government and citizens,
and public security.
This lecture series is also an excellent example of the cooperation
between McGill and the Department of Justice and, in a larger sense, between
the worlds of academia and government. This forum for discussion therefore
benefits both institutions, and it shows the importance of the links that
connect us. The academic world, after all, helps to support and direct the
development of government policies and provides careful examination of difficult
questions.
So, on behalf of all who will take part in this evening’s
event, I want to thank Dean Peter Leuprecht and Professor Stephen Scott for
their roles in organizing this third John Tait Memorial Lecture in Law and
Public Policy.
I will now turn things back over to Professor Scott, since I
know you are as anxious as I am to hear from the Right Honourable Lord Slynn
of Hadley.
Stephen Scott
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Minister.
An important book of essays was recently published in honour
of Gordon, Lord Slynn of Hadley, under the title Judicial Review in European
Union Law (edited by David O’Keeffe and published by Kluwer in The
Hague in 2000). The book’s preface, written by his friend and colleague,
Lord Templeman, is an elegant and detailed biographical note on Lord Slynn’s
achievements, with an appended list of his many offices and honours. Were
I so presumptuous as to try even to summarize it for you, I would consume
a great part of our time this evening.
Proceeding then somewhat impressionistically, I shall begin
by emphasizing that Lord Slynn, our distinguished lecturer this evening, is
in many ways here amongst friends. After his call to the Bar of England at
Gray’s Inn in 1956, he spent some time in academic life in Cambridge
and London, and practised commercial and common law. He then served the government
of the United Kingdom for about a decade in various offices as counsel, notably
as Leading Counsel to the Treasury from 1974 to 1976. Of course, the Tait
Memorial Lecture, which brings us together this evening, is itself founded
by Canada’s Depart-ment of Justice, the main body of Canadian government
counsel, in memory of one of its number, who was also a graduate of our Faculty.
I cannot resist noting that one of Gordon Slynn’s cases
from his years as Treasury Counsel has been a constant companion in my Constitutional
Law Casebook for about twenty years. Indeed, you could teach perhaps half
the subjects in our curriculum through Hoffman - LaRoche v. Secretary of
State for Trade and Industry. I have taken much pleasure through the years
in noting to my students, as we analyze the proceedings and their result in
the individual speeches in the House of Lords, Gordon Slynn’s ever-rising
rank within the British and European legal systems.
The invitation you received to this evening’s event itself
testifies to the range of his interests and the extent of his energies. He
provides leadership to, amongst others, the International Law Association,
the International Federation for European Law, and the Statute Law Society.
It was while he was on one such mission to Montreal in the 1970s,
I think, in the company of Lord Templeman, that I first had the privilege
of making Lord Slynn’s acquaintance. He has visited Montreal on several
occasions since, speaking at this Faculty and elsewhere, and it is a special
pleasure to welcome him back.
Having begun his judicial career in England in the Queen’s
Bench Division of the High Court, where he sat from 1976 to 1981, Lord Slynn
went on to serve in the Court of Justice of the European Community as an Advocate
General from 1981 to 1988 and then as a judge from 1988 to 1992. Elevated
to the House of Lords in 1992 as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, he has sat
since that time — with great distinction — in exercise of his country’s
final appellate jurisdiction.
Maintaining continuity and stability whilst accommodating change
is a central task of public policy. Few institutions have achieved this more
successfully than the House of Lords, which in different forms acts as the
Upper House of the United Kingdom Parliament and as its final Court of Appeal.
Our lecturer, Lord Slynn, is a very modern man performing very modern judicial
functions in a very ancient institution.
In the Lords’ magnificent chamber, the Lord Chancellor
still presides sitting on the Woolsack, which exemplifies the great source
of England’s wealth in late Medieval times. In the 1970s, as North Sea
petroleum began to feed the British economy, I wrote to The Times of
London that, given the British genius for adapting institutions, we should
soon hear their Lordships speaking of the noble and learned Lord sitting on
the oil drum. (I still feel deeply aggrieved that the editor did not publish
my letter.)
Wool and oil aside, the European Union is temptingly rumoured
to have created mountains of butter and lakes of wine. On the latter at least,
Lord Slynn seems specially qualified to comment as he is, amongst other things,
a Chevalier du Tastevin and a Commandeur d’Honneur, Commanderie
du Bontemps du Médoc et des Graves.
Tonight, Lord Slynn will speak about the institutions of the
European Union. The title of his lecture is “For the European Union —
A Constitution?”
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