Gérald Fauteux

Early Life and Family

Gérald Fauteux was born to Héva and Homère Fauteux, a dentist, in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. He was one of eight children, three of whom died in infancy. His uncle Honoré Mercier was premier of Quebec from 1887 to 1891. Fauteux also grew up when his great-uncle, Sir Jean-Lomer Gouin, served as Quebec’s premier from 1905 to 1920.

Fauteux graduated with a Licentiate in Law from the Université de Montréal in 1925. He was called to the Quebec bar later that year. He formed the firm Mercier & Fauteux with his uncle Honoré Mercier, who also served in Quebec’s National Assembly from 1907 to 1936.

In November 1929, Fauteux married Yvette Mathieu. They had three daughters and two sons.

Crown Prosecutor

From 1930 to 1936, Gérald Fauteux served as a Crown prosecutor in Montreal. His role was to use evidence provided by police to bring to trial those charged with criminal offences. In 1939, he was appointed Quebec’s chief Crown prosecutor. Reporting to Quebec’s minister of justice and attorney general, Fauteux was responsible for overseeing all criminal and penal prosecutions in the province.

Royal Commissions

In 1946, following the defection of Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, the federal government created the Royal Commission on Espionage. Fauteux was chosen to serve as a legal advisor. In this role, he helped to determine the extent of spying activity in Canada and made recommendations for the government to address the problem. 

Fauteux was appointed to serve on the Royal Commission on the Revision of Criminal Code in 1949. Its 1954 report guided the extensive 1955 revisions to the Criminal Code, which had been in place since 1893.

Academic Career

Gérald Fauteux believed in the importance of universities. He called them “living, dynamic, critical and impatient centres directed both towards themselves and towards society. They give witness to excellence and vigour.” Fauteux taught criminal law at McGill University for 14 years, beginning in 1936. In 1949–50, he was dean of McGill’s Faculty of Law.

Fauteux was one of the founders of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law. From 1953 to 1962, he taught there and served as dean. He said the law school should teach “rules of conduct for men according to the legal conception of two brilliant civilizations that had a pervasive influence on the field of law: French civilization and English civilization.” The university’s law department is now located in Fauteux Hall.

In 1980, Fauteaux wrote Le livre du magistrat (The Magistrate’s Book). The well-received and widely read book offers guidance for judges regarding ethical decisions and behaviour.

Superior Court of Québec

In 1947, Gérald Fauteux was appointed by the federal government to serve as a Superior Court of Québec justice. The Court hears all civil and criminal cases not assigned to the province’s lower courts and hears all criminal jury trials.

Supreme Court of Canada

Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent appointed Fauteux to the Supreme Court of Canada on 22 December 1949. The date is significant because in that year the Supreme Court became the final court of appeal in Canada, with cases no longer appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Great Britain.

Among the important cases on which Fauteux ruled was Switzman v. Elbling. The 1957 case concerned the 1937 Padlock Act. It allowed the Quebec government to close any building found to have hosted a meeting of communists. Fauteux sided with the majority in arguing that the law was outside the jurisdiction of the Quebec government and violated civil rights. He wrote, “In short, the incriminated law prohibits and punishes communist propaganda by the temporary loss of a right — that of liberty or property — and not by the loss of a privilege.”

Fauteux believed that the Court’s job was to interpret laws and not to advance social causes. In 1967, for instance, despite a man not having harmed anyone, a lower court ruled that he was a dangerous sexual offender because he was gay. At the time, homosexuality was illegal in Canada. Fauteux ruled to uphold the conviction and wrote, “Whether the criminal law… should be changed to the extent to which it has been recently in England… is obviously not for us to say; our jurisdiction is to interpret and apply laws validly enacted.”

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

On 23 March 1970, Fauteux was sworn in as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Many important cases were decided during his three years in the role, including R v. Wray (1971). Fauteux sided with the majority in arguing that evidence that is relevant to a case must be allowed to be presented at trial no matter how it was obtained.

Another influential case was  Canada v. Lavell (1973). Fauteux argued with the majority that the Indian Act did not diminish a woman’s equality before the law when they lost Indian Status due to marrying a non-Indian person. The ruling was controversial at the time and for years later. It influenced the framing of section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protected individual rights. It also motivated the 1985 repeal of section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act. Both actions guaranteed that a woman’s status would not be affected by whom she married.

Fateaux retired from the Supreme Court on 23 December 1973.

Retirement

Following his retirement from the Supreme Court, Fateaux served as chancellor of the University of Ottawa from 1973 to 1979. He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1974. Fauteux died in Montreal at the age of 79. He is buried in Montreal.

(See also Judiciary in Canada; Court System of Canada.)