Sir Lyman Rests

In the dingy, drafty former stable in Ottawa where sit the seven judges of Canada's Supreme Court in scarlet, ermine-trimmed robes and black, tricornered hats, one chair will be empty this week. Chief Justice Sir Lyman Poore Duff, the Dominion's own counterpart of the late great Oliver Wendell Holmes, is retiring.

For 37 years, almost eleven of them as Chief Justice, Sir Lyman sat on the Supreme Bench, heard and ruled on the constitutional issues that shaped Canada. Parliament had extended his term year after year because of his stature as one of the Empire's great legal minds. But now he was 79 and it was time to go.

The Sleeping Fire. Though the air of tradition is heavy in the tiny old courtroom where Sir Lyman presided, he kept the proceedings informal, ruled with courtesy and brilliance. But he could be tough. Once during the last sitting when he raised his voice, so unexpected was his anger a lawyer fled the courtroom.

There have been few such storms in Sir Lyman's long, calm life. He seemed born for the bench. His first break came with his appointment as Junior Counsel for Canada in the international arbitration of the 36-year-old dispute on the Alaska-B.C. boundary. After the hearings he was called to the British Columbia Supreme Court, two years later was elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada. Then 41, he was the youngest man ever to be appointed.

Women Are Persons. The judgments he wrote in the following 37 years are his monument, shine with his liberal belief that "a" country's political growth should not be stunted by the dead hand of mere legalism." He dissented when the Court ruled out Canada's first "New Deal" sponsored by Prime Minister (now Lord) Bennett. When his fellow judges ruled that women were not persons and therefore net entitled to sit in the Senate, he dissented vigorously. His view was upheld in the Privy Council in London, of which Sir Lyman had been a member since 1919.

For years he carried on a correspondence in Greek with the late erudite Lord Haldane. He reads voraciously (30 to 40 books a week, friends say), relaxes with detective stories. On most days he walks three miles, has never owned a motorcar.

The Work Goes On. Most likely successor to the retiring Chief Justice is his able subordinate and close friend, mustached French-Canadian Justice Thibaudeau Rinfret (rhymes with kin-fret) because of Canada's custom of alternating top judicial appointments between the two language groups and major religions. French and Catholic, balding Justice Rinfret, like his colleague, believes that the law is not an "affair of literal precepts but a social instrument. . . ."

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