#121 | In the Blind Spot – Episode 5: Safeguarding Judicial Independence Under Pressure
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In the Blind Spot | Episode 5 – Safeguarding Judicial Independence Under Pressure
Broadcast Date: September 3, 2026
EPISODE SUMMARY | SERIES OVERVIEW | BIOGRAPHIES | USEFUL LINKS | PREVIOUS SERIES
EPISODE SUMMARY
Judicial independence is essential to democracy and the rule of law. But how can judges and lawyers remain independent when they face political pressure, intimidation, or attacks on their legitimacy?
In this 5th episode of the series “In the Blind Spot,” the Honourable Justice Simon Ruel speaks with Margaret L. Satterthwaite, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, about the threats facing justice systems worldwide and the safeguards needed to protect them.
Their conversation highlights why judicial independence is not only a concern for legal professionals, but a fundamental protection for everyone.
Guest
- Margaret L. Satterthwaite, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, United Nations Special Procedures; Professor of Law, Director, Legal Empowerment and Judicial Independence Clinic, Faculty Director, Robert & Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, Co-Director, Center for Human Rights & Global Justice, New York University School of Law
Host
- The Honourable Justice Simon Ruel, Court of Appeal of Quebec
BIOGRAPHIES
Margaret L. Satterthwaite
Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers
United Nations Special Procedures;
Professor of Law
Director, Legal Empowerment and Judicial Independence Clinic
Faculty Director, Robert & Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights
Co-Director, Center for Human Rights & Global Justice
New York University School of Law
Margaret Satterthwaite is the faculty director of the Robert and Helen Bernstein Institute for Human Rights and a faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ). She is a Professor of Law and director of the Legal Empowerment and Judicial Independence Clinic. She currently serves as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers. Her recent scholarship has involved cross-disciplinary work aimed at advancing the evidence base for human rights advocacy. This collaborative work includes A Social Science of Human Rights? A Conceptual Roadmap for Social Science Methods in Human Rights Fact-Finding (co-authored with Justin Simeone); Measuring What We Treasure and Treasuring What We Measure: The Promise and Perils of Global Monitoring for the Promotion of Equality in the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sector (co-authored with Inga Winkler and Catarina de Albuquerque); and Persuasive Visualization: Can Visualized Data Change Users’ Opinions? (co-authored with Enrico Bertini, Oded Nov, Anshul Pandey, and Anjali Manivannan), as well as a series of articles on trauma and resilience in human rights work. She has published two books, Gender, National Security, and Counter-Terrorism: Human Rights Perspectives (co-edited with Jayne Huckerby, 2013; paperback, 2014) and Human Rights Advocacy Stories (co-edited with Deena Hurwitz and Douglas Ford, 2009), a volume in the Law Stories series. Her past scholarship focused on indicators and metrics, human rights in Haiti, and the human rights impacts of counter-terrorism measures.
Satterthwaite joined the NYU faculty in 2006 after many years in the human rights field. Her human rights career began before law school: between 1990 and 1996, she co-founded and then directed Amnesty International USA’s program on the human rights of those persecuted on the basis of their sexual orientation. Satterthwaite also completed a Master’s Degree and served as International Programs Coordinator for the human rights education organization Street Law, where she helped develop curriculum in human rights and legal literacy, as well as conducting workshops and training sessions for human rights advocates and legal professionals. In 1995, she was employed as a human rights investigator by the Haitian National Truth and Justice Commission.
After receiving her law degree magna cum laude from NYU Law in 1999, Satterthwaite clerked for Judge Betty Fletcher of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The following year she was the Furman Fellow at Human Rights First (then the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights), where she focused on emergency law and collusion in Northern Ireland. In 2002, Satterthwaite clerked at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Between 2002 and 2003, Satterthwaite was a human rights consultant for the United Nations, working with the human rights section of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). In 2003, she was hired as research director of NYU’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. She joined the full-time faculty in January 2006.
Satterthwaite has served as a consultant to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank. In 2009, she received the Pioneer of Justice and Equality for Women and the Law; in 2011 she was awarded the Podell Distinguished Teaching Award; and in 2014, she received the NYU School of Law Alumni Association’s Legal Teaching Award. She has served as an adviser or member of the board of directors of a range of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International USA, Digital Democracy, the Global Initiative for Economic and Social Rights, and the International Justice Resource Center.
The Honourable Justice Simon Ruel
Court of Appeal of Quebec
The Honourable Simon Ruel was elevated to the Court of Appeal of Quebec on June 21, 2017, after having sat on the Quebec Superior Court from 2014 to 2017. Justice Ruel studied law at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and has completed a certificate in Russian studies at Université Laval’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.
As a lawyer, Justice Ruel practised mainly in public and administrative law and in government affairs. He was a member of the Quebec Bar (1995) and of the Law Society of Ontario (2007). After beginning his career with the firm of Grey Casgrain in Montreal, he subsequently became a litigator and counsel to the federal Department of Justice, the Privy Council Office, and the federal Department of Finance in Ottawa. Before his appointment to the Superior Court, he was a partner at the firm of BCF Business Law in Quebec City and, prior to that, at the national Canadian firm Heenan Blaikie
Justice Ruel participated as counsel in numerous federal and provincial public inquiries and investigations. These included the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities, the Cornwall Public Inquiry, and the Commission of Inquiry on the Process for Appointing Judges presided by the Honourable Michel Bastarache. He also appeared before the Manitoba Court of Appeal to represent the Manitoba Commission of Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Phoenix Sinclair.
In addition to practising law, Justice Ruel taught public and administrative law at the Quebec Bar School and lectured on civil and commercial evidence at the University of Ottawa. He has authored or co-authored numerous legal publications, articles, and commentaries on public and administrative law and on inquiries. He has also participated as a speaker, host, or moderator in a number of legal events on topics covering judicial ethics, public and administrative law, public inquiries and investigations, criminal and penal law, the use of technology in the justice system, and judgment writing. Justice Ruel has served as chair of the Quebec Judicial Committee on Information Security (“COMSI”) and chair of the Judges Section of the Canadian Bar Association.
He is currently a puisne member of the Judicial Independence Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council and co-chair of the Council’s social media subcommittee. As counsel, he advised the Council on reforms to the disciplinary process for federally appointed judges and, subsequently, as a member of the Council’s Judicial Independence Committee, he participated in revising the Ethical Principles for Judges, which were updated in 2021, and in the drafting of the Guidelines on the Use of Social Media by Federally Appointed Judges, which were released in October 2024.
Justice Ruel also has an interest in international law. In 2014, in preparation for the review of Haiti’s implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, he participated, on behalf of Transparency International/Haiti, in an international mission to assess anti-corruption measures taken by the Republic of Haiti.
Over the course of his study leave during the 2023-2024 judicial year, Justice Ruel focused on the law of war, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. He was a visiting professor at Université Laval’s Faculty of Law in Quebec City and took part in a number of teaching activities and seminars on these topics. He collaborated with the Faculty’s International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic and with Lawyers Without Borders, including on issues relating to the prevention of corruption. He also made three visits to the International Criminal Court in The Hague as a visiting professional to observe all facets of international criminal justice in an active case involving the Central African Republic.
USEFUL LINKS
Website of the Mandate:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-independence-of-judges-and-lawyers
Report on Principles for Judicial Appointments:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/ahrc6243-principles-judicial-appointments-report-special-rapporteur
Report on AI in Justice Systems:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a80169-ai-judicial-systems-promises-and-pitfalls-report-special
“Unchecking Power and Capturing Courts: How Autocratization Erodes Independent Judicial Systems,”:
https://rutgerslawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/76RutgersULRev-2.pdf
Database where all formal communications to different Governments can be found:
https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/Tmsearch/TMDocuments
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Principles for judicial appointments – Margaret Satterthwaite:
https://docs.un.org/A/HRC/62/43
PREVIOUS SERIES
“Under Fire” is a series of french podcasts produced by the Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice and hosted by the Honorable Judge Simon Ruel of the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2024. The interviews feature experts in international law, the law of war, humanitarian law, and international criminal law. The series aims to examine and understand the rules and legal consequences arising from international conflicts.
The right to wage war (jus ad bellum) and international humanitarian law (jus in bello) concern, respectively, the right of states to use armed force against other states and the regulation of armed conflict once it has begun, with the aim, in particular, of limiting suffering and protecting civilian populations. International criminal law deals with the individual criminal responsibility of actors in armed conflicts for crimes constituting serious violations of humanitarian law, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The International Criminal Court is a permanent international criminal court with universal jurisdiction and a mandate to rule on the responsibility of such actors. In addition, certain issues relating to armed conflict may also be brought before the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, particularly with regard to the use of force in international law and the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The “Under Fire” podcast series explores these topics with experts in an accessible and educational manner, with the aim of demystifying these important concepts for the Canadian legal community and enabling it to better understand the current global flashpoints and their consequences.
List of episodes (in French):
- Le droit international humanitaire (ou droit des conflits armés – jus in bello)
- La justice pénale internationale sous toutes ses coutures
- La défense en justice pénale internationale
- Les victimes et la justice pénale internationale
- Le recours à la force en droit international et la Cour internationale de justice
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