Kent Roach

Kent Roach is a Professor of Law at the University of Toronto where he holds the Prichard-Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy. He was awarded a Trudeau Fellowship in 2013. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and Yale and a former law clerk to Justice Bertha Wilson of the Supreme Court of Canada. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada by his fellow academics in 2002. His twelve books include Constitutional Remedies in Canada (winner of the 1997 Owen Prize for best law book), Due Process and Victims’ Rights: The New Law and Politics of Criminal Justice (short-listed for the 1999 Donner Prize for best public policy book), The Supreme Court on Trial: Judicial Activism or Democratic Dialogue (short-listed for the 2001 Donner Prize), September 11: Consequences for Canada (named one of the five most significant books of 2003 by the Literary Review of Canada) ; (with Robert J. Sharpe) Brian Dickson: A Judge’s Journey (winner of the 2004 J.W. Dafoe Prize for best contribution to the understanding of Canada) and The 9/11 Effect: Comparative Counter-Terrorism (co winner of a 2012 Mundell Medal for contribution to legal writing.). He is also the author of over 200 articles and chapters published throughout the world. He has been the editor-in-chief of the Criminal Law Quarterly since 1998. Professor Roach frequently acts as counsel for interveners and has been involved in landmark cases such as Ward v. British Columbia on Charter damages, Golden on the constitutionality of strip searches, Corbiere and Sauve on the voting rights of Aboriginal people and Williams, Gladue, Wells and Ipeelee on the treatment of Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system. He served as research director for both the Goudge Inquiry on Forensic Pathology and the Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182 and on the research advisory committees of both the inquiry into Maher Arar’s rendition and the inquiry into the killing of Aboriginal protester Dudley George at Ipperwash. He is presently a special advisor to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools for Aboriginal peoples.