The Court of Appeal for Ontario (frequently mistakenly referred to as the Ontario Court of Appeal) (ONCA is the abbreviation for its neutral citation) is the

appellate court An appellate court, commonly called a court of appeal(s), appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear a case upon appeal from a trial court or other lower tribunal. Appel ...

for the province of

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. 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 (architect), John Ewart and William Warren Baldwin. The structure is n ...

downtown Toronto Downtown Toronto is the main city centre 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 Street to the nor ...

(also the seat of the

Law Society of Ontario The Law Society of Ontario (LSO; ) is the law society responsible for the self-regulation of lawyers and paralegals in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. Founded in 1797 as the Law Society of Upper Canada (LS ...

and the Divisional Court of the

Ontario Superior Court of Justice The Superior Court of Justice (French: ''Cour supérieure de justice'') is a superior court in Ontario. The Court sits in 52 locations across the province, including 17 Family Court locations, and consists of over 300 federally appointed judges. ...

Description

The

Court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

is composed of 22 judicial seats, in addition to 10 justices who currently sit supernumerary. They hear over 1,500 appeals each year, on issues of

private law Private law is that part of a legal system that governs interactions between individual persons. It is distinguished from public law, which deals with relationships between both natural and artificial persons (i.e., organizations) and the st ...

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 ...

criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It proscribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and Well-being, welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal l ...

administrative law Administrative law is a division of law governing the activities of government agency, executive branch agencies of government. Administrative law includes executive branch rulemaking (executive branch rules are generally referred to as "regul ...

and other matters. The

Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; , ) is the highest court in the judicial system of Canada. It comprises nine justices, whose decisions are the ultimate application of Canadian law, and grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants eac ...

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) ''Halpern v Canada (AG)'', 003O.J. No. 2268 is a June 10, 2003 decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in which the Court found that the common law definition of marriage, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman, violated s ...

'' 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 Social equality, equality rights. As part of the Constitution of Canada, the section prohibits certain forms of discrimination perpetrated by the governments of Can ...

, legalizing

same-sex marriage in Ontario Same-sex marriage has been unambiguously legal in Ontario since June 10, 2003. The first legal same-sex marriages performed in Ontario were of Kevin Bourassa to Joe Varnell, and Elaine Vautour to Anne Vautour, by Reverend Brent Hawkes on January ...

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 Rosalie Silberman Abella (born July 1, 1946) is a Canadians, Canadian jurist. In 2004, Abella was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, becoming the first Jews, Jewish woman and refugee to sit on the Canadian Supreme Court bench. She retire ...

Louise Arbour Louise 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 Chief Pr ...

Peter Cory Peter deCarteret Cory, (October 25, 1925 – April 7, 2020) was a puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, from 1989 to 1999. Early life and education Born in Windsor, Ontario, the son of Andrew and Mildred (Beresford Howe) Cory, he was educ ...

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 Andromache Karakatsanis (born October 3, 1955) is a Canadian jurist. She was nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada by Stephen Harper in October 2011. She is the first Greek-Canadian judge on the Court. Since the retirement of Rosalie Abell ...

Bora Laskin Bora Laskin (October 5, 1912 – March 26, 1984) was a Canadians, Canadian jurist who served as the 14th Chief Justice of Canada, chief justice of Canada from 1973 to 1984 and as a List of justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, puisne just ...

Michael Moldaver Michael Moldaver (born December 23, 1947) is a former Canadian judge. He was a puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada from his 2011 appointment by former Prime Minister Stephen Harper until his retirement in 2022. Before his elevation to t ...

, and

Mahmud Jamal Mahmud Jamal (born July 20, 1967) is a Canadian jurist serving as a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada since 2021. Jamal worked as a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt and taught law at McGill University and Osgoode Hall Law School b ...

, as well as

Bertha Wilson Bertha Wernham Wilson (September 18, 1923April 28, 2007) was a Canadian jurist and the first female puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Before her ascension to Canada's highest court, she was the first female associate and partner ...

, 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 In law, an appeal is the process in which Legal case, cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of cla ...

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