Cheryl Milne
Executive Director, David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights
Cheryl Milne is a leading member of the constitutional law bar in Ontario. She is currently Chair of the Ontario Bar Association's Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights section. Cheryl brings extensive and sophisticated constitutional litigation experience to the Centre. She was called to the Ontario Bar in 1987 and completed her M.S.W. at the University of Toronto in 1991. Since 1991, she has practised law at Justice for Children and Youth. In this capacity, Cheryl has appeared at all levels of court including the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as various administrative tribunals and the clinic itself in interventions and applications.
Cheryl has been involved in many significant Charter cases involving the rights of young people under the age of 18. She was counsel for the clinic in its constitutional challenge to section 43 of the Criminal Code (the "spanking case"), and recently in the D.B. case involving the constitutionality of the adult sentencing provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Cheryl is vice-chair of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, and is currently working with members of our Faculty on a major conference on the notion of the best interests of the child. Cheryl is also a devoted and experienced teacher. She currently teaches Social Work and the Law in the School of Social Work at Ryerson University, and had been a guest lecturer at the University of Toronto.
