Gonthier, Charles Doherty, 1928-2009 : Born in Montréal on 1 August, 1928, Charles D. Gonthier, son of Georges Gonthier and Kathleen Doherty, was educated at the École Garneau in Ottawa and Loyola College in Montréal. In 1947, he studied at Collège Stanislas in Montréal, which was part of a network of French colleges at the time. In 1951, he received a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from McGill University.
He was called to the Bar of Quebec in 1952, and practised law in Montréal with the firm of Hackett, Mulvena and Laverty (1952-1957), and Hugessen, Macklaier, Chisholm, Smith and Davis, later known as Laing, Weldon, Courtois, Clarkson, Parsons, Gonthier and Tétrault (1957-1974). He was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1971. Between 1959 and 1969, he was a member of the board of the Montréal Legal Aid Bureau, president of the Junior Bar of Montréal (1960-1961), president of the Junior Bar Section of the Canadian Bar Association (1961-1962), and a member of the Board of Directors of the Bar of Montréal.
Between 1963 and 1974, he was secretary of the Quebec Division of the Canadian Bar Association, a member of the Committee on Building Contracts of the Quebec Civil Code Revision Office and a member of the Committee on Discipline of the Bar of Quebec. He was appointed to the Superior Court of Quebec on 17 October, 1974.
In 1983, he was chair of the Commission for National Judges of the First World Conference on the Independence of Justice in Montréal. In 1984, he also joined the board of Collège Stanislas as chair, and in 1976 he became a member of the Board of Directors of the McCord Museum.
Gonthier also played an important role in the Canadian judiciary. From 1986 to 1987, he was president of the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, and from 1988 to 1989 he was president of the Canadian Judges Conference. He was appointed to the Court of Appeal of Quebec on May 24, 1988, and to the Supreme Court of Canada as a puisne judge on February 1, 1989.
After his retirement on 1 August, 2003, he returned to private practice as counsel with McCarthy Tétrault in Montréal. He also became chair of the Board of Governors of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law at McGill University's Faculty of Law. In 2006, Gonthier was appointed Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment.
In the course of his career, he participated in many national and international conferences. He also received several honorary degrees and titles. He was named a Knight of l'Ordre des palmes académiques of France in 1988. He received an honorary doctorate from McGill University in 1990 and was a Wainwright Senior Research Fellow at that institution. He was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada on 3 May, 2007. Gonthier passed away on July 17, 2009.
In 2011, a fellowship was established in his honour by the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice. Subsequently, McGill University, the Université de Montréal and the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice jointly organized a national conference and created a website in his memory.