May 14, 2021
The first Iranian-born judge has been appointed to the Federal Court of Canada.
Justice Lobat Sadrehashemi was born in Iran and moved to Alberta with her parents and two older sisters when she was 16 months old.
She graduated from the University of Calgary with a degree in international relations before earning her law degree from the University of Toronto in 2005.
Her years of private practice in Vancouver were focused on refugee and immigration cases. From 2017 to 2019, she was the president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers.
She and her partner are raising what they call an eight-year-old “aspiring artist.”
As a practical matter, she has been chosen to be one of the 37 justices on the Federal Court by the Justice Minister. In technical terms, however, she is appointed to the court by the Governor General, who is the representative in Canada of Queen Elizabeth II as head of the Commonwealth.
Canada’s legal system is similar to that of the United States in the sense that both have evolved from the Britain’s common law judicial system. However, Canada’s structure is very different from that of the United States. The Federal Court in Canada is roughly analogous to District Courts in the United States in that the Federal Court is a trial court. But Canada does not have geographic districts and the justices of the Federal Court can try cases anywhere.
The Federal Court has very broad jurisdiction, but not as broad as US District Court, which tries cases of every kind. In Canada, the Federal Court has been given the power to review decisions of all federal boards, commissions, and tribunals.
While judicial review occupies much of the Federal Court’s time today, the spectrum of its subject-matter jurisdiction is vast. It includes Crown actions, immigration, citizenship, national security, indigenous peoples, human rights, admiralty, customs, intellectual property, tax, labor relations, transportation, communications, parole and corrections.