Canadian civil rights lawyer and legal giant Clayton Ruby has died at the age of 80.
Ruby died peacefully Tuesday surrounded by her family, her law firm Ruby Shiller Enenajor DiGiuseppe said.
“Clay was a champion of human rights, an advocate for the underprivileged and a loving friend. Our thoughts are with his family and our entire company mourns the loss of our leader and mentor,” the firm said in a tweet.
Ruby, who received the Order of Canada in 2005, is described on the Governor General’s website as “a distinguished criminal lawyer whose reputation extends across the country. [who] dedicated his career to the promotion of justice.”
But while her illustrious career may be known to many, her longtime colleague Brian Shiller told CBC News that some of the things she will remember most are Ruby’s sweet and caring nature, his love of a good debate and his willingness to call a person out if he felt it was warranted.
“That part of who Clay was, he wasn’t going to, one, suffer fools lightly or, two, have his voice choked,” Shiller said.
“It’s hard to imagine a world without him.”
Ruby’s longtime colleague Brian Shiller said one of the things he will remember most about the legal giant is his sweet and caring disposition, love of a good debate and willingness to call a person if he thought was justified. (Farrah Merali/CBC)
Shiller began working with Ruby 28 years ago and still considers him a mentor. The first time the two met, Shiller remembers being terrified to sit across from someone he considered a legend.
But as soon as Ruby sat down, the same pleasant demeanor left Shiller “totally disarmed.”
“He was an empathetic, sweet person. He was very opinionated and you wouldn’t always agree with his opinions … But as a friend he was very caring,” she said.
“It was justice that really defined him”
The longest-serving bencher of the Law Society of Ontario, Ruby was a staunch advocate for justice, Shiller recalled.
“It was justice that really defined him … and making sure that people in authority were held accountable,” he said. Ruby, he said, was very upset about the role of Crown attorneys in Ontario, believing they had too much power and were too often taken at their word by juries who assumed their cases were strong, he said.
Gerald Chan was Ruby’s law partner for seven years and says he considered him “a father figure”.
“She really had no ego,” Chan recalled, saying what she will remember most is “Ruby’s fire and that dedication and devotion to ensuring fairness and justice for those who have less power in our society.”
Gerald Chan was Ruby’s law partner for seven years and says he considered him “a father figure”. (Farrah Merali/CBC)
Early in his career, Chan remembers being in a Supreme Court of Canada case with Ruby and working up the courage to ask if he could argue a few minutes of the appeal.
“Of course, you’re going to discuss half the appeal with me. We’re colleagues,” Chan recalls Ruby saying, adding that the moment captures exactly the kind of mentor Ruby was.
Among the most important lessons he says he learned from Ruby over the years was how to be fearless and have a “single-minded” mind to seek justice when he saw a wrong.
Ruby also disliked Crown attorneys becoming judges, believing that doing so brought them into conflict.
While Ruby was perhaps best known for his many high-profile cases over the past half-century or so, Shiller says his life as an activist began in the 1960s and 1970s when he dispensed free legal advice in Yorkville to hippies and 70. those he believed would probably be subject to the law. He was even briefly jailed for his work as a civil rights activist in the US, Shiller said.
Ruby cared deeply about a number of key causes and volunteered her time with a number of human rights organizations, including PEN Canada, Human Rights Watch, and the Sierra Legal Defense Fund.
“There are mistakes and they can be huge”
During his celebrated career, he took on some of the country’s most notable cases, including the wrongful conviction of Guy Paul Morin, who was accused of murdering nine-year-old Christine Jessop in 1984 before being cleared.
When police identified Jessop’s killer in 2020, Ruby spoke to CBC News about the “tragedy” of wrongful convictions.
LOOK | Clayton Ruby reacts when the police identify the real killer of Christine Jessop:
Guy’s former lawyer Paul Morin reacts when the police identify the real killer of Christine Jessop
The National’s Adrienne Arsenault talks to Clayton Ruby, who was the defense lawyer for Guy Paul Morin, the man wrongfully convicted of killing Christine Jessop, about the police who learned the identity of her killer.
“You never recover. It’s never the same,” he said.
We tend to trust prosecutors who say, ‘Convict this man, we have enough evidence to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,'” he said.
“We trust authority and I think this case made it clear to people that there are mistakes and they can be huge and inexplicable… So there’s a more skeptical approach to the prosecution’s claims and I think that it’s a healthy thing. It makes us all safer. .”
In the 1980s, Ruby represented prominent doctor and abortion rights advocate Henry Morgentaler to ensure that women in Canada who needed abortions could have them safely without harassment.
Among his other high-profile cases, Ruby also represented Michelle Douglas, a soldier fired from the Army in 1989 because of her sexual orientation. In 1992, shortly before his case went to trial, the military dropped its policies barring LGBT Canadians from serving and settled the case.
In 2012, Ruby took on a conflict of interest case seeking to oust former Toronto mayor Rob Ford. A High Court judge ordered Ford’s withdrawal before the decision was overturned in the Divisional Court.
In 2020, Ruby spoke to CBC News after Ontario’s chief pathologist determined the cause of death of Soleiman Faqiri in an Ontario jail cell in 2016. So far, no charges have been laid guard in the case.
“It’s a failure of justice. And the attorney general and the solicitor general have a responsibility to correct that,” Ruby told CBC News.
A lawsuit filed by the family against the province and seven prison staff remains before the courts.
Ruby was also a member of the patron council of the medically assisted death advocacy organization Dying with Dignity.
One of his most notable cases was in 1994, when he represented former NDP MP Svend Robinson, who was present at what was then the medically assisted wrongful death of Sue Rodriguez. Ultimately, Robinson was not charged.
In a tweet Wednesday, Robinson said he was “heartbroken” by the news of Ruby’s death.
“Giant in the legal profession, pillar of the progressive community and a fine and decent man, a mensch,” he wrote.
Ruby leaves behind his wife, Superior Court Judge Harriet Sachs, as well as two children and two grandchildren.