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Former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella criticized U.S. Supreme Court Justices for their adamant commitment to originalism during a panel hosted by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Abella joined Ayelet Shachar, a professor of Canadian studies, law, and political science, as well as Canadian journalist Steve Paikin to discuss her time on the Canadian Supreme Court during a Monday afternoon panel.

Abella said that during her time on the Canadian Supreme Court, she and her colleagues were not as committed to originalism — a legal philosophy that advocates interpreting constitutions in line with the intent of their authors.

“We’re respectful of the words, but we’re not tied to them,” Abella said. “We’re not tethered to the same anchors that American constitutional law, at the moment, seems to be headed to.”

“Neither is any other constitutional democracy in the Western world,” she added.

Abella said that recent decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court have moved away from the living constitutionalist precedent of the Warren Court in the 1960s, which interprets the Constitution through a modern lens.

“It’s becoming increasingly sclerotic of rights, which is sad, because this is the country we’ve learned about democracy from,” Abella said.

As the U.S. Supreme Court becomes more partisan, and more conservative, Abella worries that justices are becoming too ideologically fixed, routinely voting in the same liberal and conservative coalitions.

“I never knew whether I was going to be in the majority or in the dissent on the Supreme Court agenda,” she said of the Canadian Supreme Court. “It wasn’t ideologically fixed. The judges weren’t, on the whole, predictable as being hard line on this or hard line on that.”

Abella added that as the ideological lines of the court become increasingly rigid — and since the conservative justices dramatically outnumber their liberal counterparts — she is worried that the U.S. Supreme Court will be a less effective tool to protect minority rights.

“Majorities have their avenues of redress, minorities only have the courts,” she said.

As the first Jewish woman on Canada’s highest court, Abella said she was motivated to pursue a legal career after watching her father, a Holocaust survivor, be denied the ability to practice law in the country.

“It was the moment that I decided I was going to be a lawyer. He couldn’t? I was going to be,” Abella added.

She credits her success with her family’s love of Canada and the opportunities it afforded them after they fled Germany after World War II.

“My grandmother, my father and mother, they were so loving and so supportive and so encouraging, but also, ‘You have to pay back Canada for letting us in’ — we got the very clear message,” she said. “I knew that I had to, I had to do everything I could to let Canada know they didn't make a mistake.”

Despite her concerns about the U.S.. Abella said she was optimistic about the future of inclusivity and equity in Canadian constitution law.

“I’m old enough now to know I can’t be smug,” she said. “But at the moment, I like the way it’s being interpreted.”