Jean-Marie Philémon Joseph Beetz, , c.r. (March 27, 1927 – September 30, 1991) was a Canadian lawyer, academic and judge from Quebec. He served as a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1974 to 1988. Family and early life Born in Montreal, Quebec, Beetz was the son of Jean Beetz and Jeanne Cousineau. He was the grandson of Johan Beetz, a Canadian naturalist of Belgian origin. Beetz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1947 from the Université de Montréal and a Licentiate of Laws in 1950. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship and attended Pembroke College, Oxford, where he received Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in 1953. Legal career Beetz was called to the bar in Quebec before leaving for England on his Rhodes Scholarship. On his return to Canada in 1953, he became an assistant professor teaching Canadian constitutional law at the Université de Montréal. He taught there for twenty years, including serving as Dean of the Faculty of Law from 1968 to 1970. He had a reputation as a reflective and meticulous scholar and a wise and caring teacher. One of his colleagues on the Faculty of Law was Pierre Trudeau, later the federal Minister of Justice and then Prime Minister of Canada. In addition to his academic work, Beetz also served in Ottawa from 1966 to 1971. He was the Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet and Assistant Clerk of the Privy Council. He then served as Prime Minister Trudeau's Special Counsel on Constitutional Affairs. In that position, he was deeply involved in the Victoria Charter constitutional reform process, which was a fore-runner to the patriation of the Constitution in 1982 and the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Judicial career Appointments In 1973, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed Beetz to the Quebec Court of Appeal. He served on that court for less than a year, being elevated to the Supreme Court of Canada on January 1, 1974. Judgments Approach to federalism Beetz's areas of expertise were the civil law of Quebec, and Canadian constitutional law. Because his time on the Supreme Court coincided with major federal-provincial disputes on federalism issues, he took part in several major federalism decisions. More than anyone else on the Court at the time, he supported the provinces in the division of powers, taking the traditional Quebec interpretation for a decentralised federation. Since Chief