Chief Justice Norman H. Carruthers announced today that he will be stepping down as Chief Justice of the Province effective January 1, 2001. He will, however, remain on the Court as a supernumerary Judge.
Chief Justice Carruthers was appointed Chief Judge of the Provincial Court on June 19, 1980, and served in that capacity for five years. During this period, he and his wife Diana and their children Susan, Karen and John, resided in Summerside.
On August 22, 1985, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and moved back to Charlottetown in August, 1986. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Province on September 24, 1987, when the Supreme Court was divided into the Appeal Division and the Trial Division.
Chief Justice Carruthers received his B.Sc. and B.Ed. degrees from Mt. Allison University and graduated from Dalhousie Law School in 1967.
He practised law in Charlottetown with the Foster, MacDonald and Carruthers law firm prior to his appointment in 1980. His daughter Susan is presently a lawyer in the Charlottetown office of the Cox, Hanson, O'Reilly, Matheson law firm.
Chief Justice Carruthers has always considered it a privilege to have had the opportunity to serve the people of Prince Edward Island as Chief Justice of the Province. However, he feels the time has come, after twenty years on the Bench, for him to step down and allow someone else to assume the position of Chief Justice.