The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal or ONCA) is the

appellate court A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...

for the province of

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The seat of the court is

Osgoode Hall Osgoode Hall is a landmark building in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The original -storey building was started in 1829 and finished in 1832 from a design by John Ewart and William Warren Baldwin. The structure is named for William Osgood ...

downtown Toronto Downtown Toronto is the main central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Str ...

, also the seat of the Law Society of Ontario and the Divisional Court of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

Description

The

Court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

is composed of 22 judicial seats, in addition to one or more justices who sit supernumerary. They hear over 1,500 appeals each year, on issues of private law,

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fe ...

, criminal law,

administrative law Administrative law is the division of law that governs the activities of executive branch agencies of government. Administrative law concerns executive branch rule making (executive branch rules are generally referred to as "regulations"), ad ...

and other matters. The Supreme Court of Canada hears appeals from less than 3% of the decisions of the Court of Appeal for Ontario, therefore in a practical sense, the Court of Appeal is the last avenue of appeal for most litigants in Ontario. Among the Court of Appeal's most notable decisions was the 2003 ruling in '' Halpern v Canada (AG)'' that found defining marriage as between one man and one woman to violate

Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Section 15 of the '' Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' contains guaranteed equality rights. As part of the Constitution of Canada, the section prohibits certain forms of discrimination perpetrated by the governments of Canada with the e ...

, legalizing same-sex marriage in Ontario and making Canada the first jurisdiction in the world where same-sex marriage was legalized by a court ruling. Among many judges from the Court who have been elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada are Justices Rosalie Abella,

Louise Arbour Louise Bernice Arbour (born February 10, 1947) is a Canadian lawyer, prosecutor and jurist. Arbour was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal for Ontario and a former ...

, Peter Cory,

Louise Charron Louise Charron, (born March 2, 1951) is a Canadian jurist. She was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada in October, 2004, and is the first native-born Franco-Ontarian Supreme Court judge. (This distinction has sometimes been attributed to Lo ...

, Andromache Karakatsanis, Bora Laskin, Michael Moldaver, and Mahmud Jamal, as well as Bertha Wilson, who was the first female justice on both the Court of Appeal for Ontario (1975) and the Supreme Court of Canada (1982). The Court of Appeal derives its jurisdiction from Ontario's
Courts of Justice Act
'.

Current judges

Supernumerary Justices

Chief Justices of Ontario

Past judges

Chief Justices of Upper Canada (1792–1841)/Province of Canada (1841–1867)

Notes

References

External links

Court of Appeal for Ontario official site

Ontario Courts website

Plan to webcast Ontario appeal cases delayed
{{Authority control

Appeal Lists of Canadian judges 1867 establishments in Ontario Courts and tribunals established in 1867