Chief Justice Mary Moreau was a Justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta for over 23 years before her appointment as its Chief Justice on October 12, 2017. She is the first woman appointed to the position of Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench.

Chief Justice Moreau graduated from the University of Alberta Law Faculty’s Class of 1979. Prior to her appointment to the Bench, she practised criminal, constitutional, and family law in Edmonton. She was counsel at all court levels in Alberta and the Supreme Court of Canada and litigated several landmark cases including the right to a criminal trial before a French-speaking jury(R v. Paquette) and Charter francophone education rights (R v. Mahé). She was Vice-President of l’Association du barreau canadien, section nationale des juristes d’expression française des provinces de common law,and a co-founder of l’Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Alberta (l’AJEFA), established to promote access to justice in French in Alberta. She was awarded le prix Jean-Louis Lebel from l’AJEFA in 2004 for her work in promoting the use of French in Alberta courts.

While in practice, she was President of the Edmonton Criminal Trial Lawyers Association, a Board member of the Legal Education Society of Alberta and Chair of the Regional Committee of the Legal Aid Society of Alberta.Since her appointment to the bench, Chief Justice Moreau has presided over French and bilingual proceedings in Alberta and as a Deputy Justice in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon Territory. In 2009, she chaired an NJI project responsible for the creation of an electronic benchbook for judges on the official language rights of the accused, which she helped update in 2017.

Throughout her judicial career, Chief Justice Moreau has been actively involved in education, administration, and strategic planning. She has regularly presented at judicial education programs and served as Co-Chair of the National Judicial Institute’s (NJI) annual national spring Criminal Law Conference for six years. She was the judicial co-editor of the NJI’s monthly criminal law newsletter for judges from 2012 to 2017, which reports nationally on recent criminal cases of interest to the judiciary. She is currently a member of the NJI’s Finance Committee.

Chief Justice Moreau chaired the Judicial Conduct Review Committee of the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association(CSCJA)with a membership of over 1,000 federally appointed judges for several years.She became the President of the CSCJA in 2011-12 and received the CSCJA President’s Award in 2013 for her service to the organization.From 2014 to 2017, she was a member of the national Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which provides confidential advisory opinions on ethical issues to federally appointed judges across Canada.

Chief Justice Moreau received an Alumni Honour Award in 2004 and an honorary doctoral degree in Laws in 2019 from the University of Alberta.

Chief Justice Moreau is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC), Chair of the CJC’s Technology Committee and a Vice-Chair of the CJC’s Judicial Conduct Committee.

Chief Justice Moreau is actively involved in international judicial education and support projects andis the Chair of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs’ Judicial Advisory Committee on International Engagement. She was a member of a Canadian team of judges and court administrators involved in the Support to Judicial Reforms Project in Ukraine, which promoted regular interaction between the courts, other justice sector institutions, the media and the public to increase public trust in Ukraine’s court system. She has been involved in several similar international judicial assistance programs, including in Mexico, Haiti, Morocco, Mongolia and Columbia.

Chief Justice Moreau has been married for 42 years to Peter Royal, K.C. (U of A Law class of 1974). They have four adult children, Joseph, Pierre, Emilie (Chris) and Paul.