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Former Chief Justice Antonio Lamer – one of the longest-serving and most influential judges in Canadian history – has died. He was 74.

The Globe and Mail has learned that Mr. Lamer, who suffered from heart trouble in recent years, died in Ottawa on Saturday after several weeks in hospital caused by general failing health.

The 74-year-old former judge continued working at his office at the Ottawa branch of law firm Stikeman Elliott until shortly before his death. Last year, he produced a major inquiry report on three wrongful murder convictions in Newfoundland study, and he was also acting as independent commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment, the national code-breaking agency.

In recent years, he also wrote a report on military justice, served as president of the Historical Council, and held numerous honorary positions at military regiments.

Mr. Lamer was appointed to the court in 1980 and quickly won a reputation as a renowned legal reformer who was determined to breath life into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

After the Charter was enacted in 1982, the first cases began to filter up to the Supreme Court judge as Mr. Lamer was hitting his stride. A troika of Chief Justice Brian Dickson, Madame Justice Bertha Wilson and Judge Lamer viewed the Charter as a vital document that would be unstintingly used to strike down legislation and reform controversial areas of law.

When he retired in 1999 after being the court's chief justice for almost a decade, Mr. Lamer was strongly identified with the protection of the rights of the accused.

”There is no question that when it came to interpreting the legal rights sections of the Charter, he was the court's most prolific writer and influential thinker,” Mr. Justice James MacPherson of the Ontario Court of Appeal said.

”He was a very energetic, intellectual and friendly man, and a terrific colleague who was always willing to shoulder extra work,” said Judge MacPherson, who served as executive legal officer at the Supreme Court for several years during its early stages of Charter interpretation.

A famed Montreal criminal lawyer who acted in numerous sensational trials, Mr. Lamer also served as chairman of the Law Reform Commission of Canada at its height in the late 1970s.

”He was a great civil libertarian,” Criminal Lawyers Association president Frank Addario said.

”His judgments reflected a belief that judges were above all independent, principled guardians of this constitution. He was unafraid to disappoint the government or the police. He made a great contribution to modernizing criminal law ”

”I think Canada should be very grateful for the fact that it had a criminal expert with his vision on the court at the time the Charter was enacted,” Queen's University law professor Don Stuart said in an interview.

When it came to striking down legislation and crafting the law, Chief Justice Lamer had few peers – a track record that transformed him into something of a judicial lightning rod.

”He was not just an expert, but a very imaginative judge whose judgments made a significant contribution to the development of criminal law under the Charter,” Prof. Stuart said after Mr. Lamer retired. ”He has often been falsely tagged as being unremittingly pro-accused. A fair look at his record shows that he also not-infrequently favoured the state's law-enforcement interests.”

At a time when the Supreme Court bench was staggered by illness and strong-minded individualists who frequently wrote their own concurring or dissenting reasons for judgment, Mr. Lamer managed to forge a strong record for administrative efficiency. He eliminated the court's backlog and issuing timely judgments.

His major decisions ranged from the rights of accused people to a revolutionary aboriginal-rights case known as Delgamuukw. Mr. Lamer played an especially instrumental role in interpreting the moral culpability involved in certain crimes, the right to legal counsel, and the right to be free of improper search and seizure.

Some critics have compared him unfavourably with his predecessor – the much-revered Chief Justice Brian Dickson – whose leadership position was supreme and unchallenged.

These critics cite the number of two-way and three-way splits in decisions during his tenure. As well, they note the frequent dissenting judgments issued by Madam Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé and a series of stinging comments Mr. Justice Gérard LaForest offered about the Lamer era when he retired.

However, Prof. Stuart said much of the criticism strikes him as unfair.

Increasingly on the defensive as chief justice, Mr. Lamer took to railing against those who have questioned judicial motives. He strongly denied that judges make inherently political decisions and worried that judges might begin subconsciously tailoring their decisions in high-profile cases for fear of a backlash.

His observation followed a widely reported speech to the Canadian Bar Association in which he posed a blunt question to his audience: Should lawyers and judges begin to respond publicly to criticism?

”I think the answer he got was loud and clear,” said Peter Russell, a former University of Toronto political scientist. ”We all said, 'No.' But I suppose you have to give him credit for asking.”

Major cases during his tenure on the Supreme Court of Canada in which he authored the majority decision were:

• R v Collins: The decision set important legal tests for the exclusion of evidence illegally obtained by police. They emphasized the nature of the evidence and the extent to which their use in a trial would ”bring the administration of justice into disrepute.”

• R v Swain: The court struck down the automatic detention of those acquitted of crimes on grounds of insanity. The court put the burden on the Crown to establish future dangerousness.

• R v Smith: The ruling struck down a mandatory minimum prison sentence of seven years for those convicted of importing marijuana.

• B.C. Motor Vehicle Reference case: The court said that when looking for violations of the right to life, liberty and security of the person, judges could look at whether the actual substance of a law was fair.

• R v Vaillancourt: A provision of the Criminal Code's constructive murder section was struck down. Chief Justice Lamer ruled that the accused man – whose accomplice in a robbery had killed a bystander – did not have the requisite ”guilty mind” to be found guilty of murder.

• R v Bartle: At issue was the right of an accused person without a lawyer to be able to call for duty counsel. This was one of several cases where Chief Justice Lamer carved out a broad right to legal counsel.

• R v O'Connor: Along with Mr. Justice John Sopinka, the chief justice ruled that the defence had a right to see records involving what a sexual assault complainant told her therapist.

• Delgamuukw v. B.C. Government: The court had previously viewed aboriginal rights as frozen based on their status when Europeans arrived in Canada. In the Delgamuukw case, described by University of Toronto law professor Peter Russell as ”the leading decision internationally on aboriginal rights,” The court granted broad rights to aboriginal title on disputed lands.