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Russell Brown stated on Monday that he would leave his position as a Supreme Court of Canada justice. The judgment comes after the Canadian Judicial Council began investigating an accusation of misconduct against Brown stemming from an incident in the United States, for which the former justice has denied all wrongdoing. Here at The Hub, we've gathered a few of the country's greatest legal minds to discuss their immediate responses to Brown's resignation and what it means for Canadian law. Indictment of the disciplinary process for Canadian judges. Yuan Yi Zhu is an assistant professor of international relations and international law at Leiden University. Justice Russell Brown's retirement from the Supreme Court of Canada is a blow to the quality of Canadian jurisprudence, which has for far too long suffered from the majority's disastrous McLachlinism. However, it also serves as an indictment of the Canadian judicial discipline process, which has long proven ineffective.From Chief Justice Wagner's decision to place Brown on an immediate leave of absence without official explanation on the basis of a flimsy complaint filed by a man who had assaulted his colleague, to the Canadian Judicial Council's unbearably sluggish preliminary investigation that took the better part of a year, to the numerous leaks from well-informed insiders to favoured journalists, the entire process has been designed to be as exhausting and wounding to Justice

There is no finer example of what American law 

professor Malcolm Feeley defined as "the process is the punishment." Even if Justice Brown had been completely exonerated at the conclusion of the open-ended procedure, his reputation would have suffered, not to mention that he would have been prevented from practicing his chosen profession for the duration of the investigation, which might have lasted years. It's no surprise that he chose to leave, giving up significant pension benefits and the chance for vindication, in order to put it all behind him.Some readers may recall the case of Justice Lori Douglas, who was likewise dragged through the mud by the CJC's open-ended investigation with no end in sight. The CJC saw her principal crime as being a victim of revenge pornography. After five years, Douglas resigned, ashamed and drained by the event.At the time, the CJC defended its vengeance by claiming that the photographs' availability on the internet was "inherently contrary to the image and concept of integrity of the judiciary," damaging public trust in the justice system. But what truly damages public trust in the judicial system is the appalling sight of a disciplinary process in which judges cannot even do justice to their own peers.Brown's resignation creates a huge intellectual void in the Court.

Howard Anglin is a doctorate student at Oxford University and a contributing writer for The Hub.

Russell Brown joined the Supreme Court of Canada 

from the Alberta Court of Appeal in 2015, where he found comfort in conformity. While the highest courts of other countries frequently clash over fundamental concerns of adjudication—what are the sources and limits of judicial legitimacy in a democracy? How can we apply broadly stated rights to specific situations? Ours had been known for an unprecedented level of consensus. This is commonly, and I believe not unreasonably, attributed to the impact of Beverley McLachlin, who, as Chief Justice, enforced benignant mediocrity with firm hand.Enter Justice Brown, a superb law scholar with a very Western perspective on Central Canadian establishment pieties and a willingness to challenge the Court's outdated dogmas. Even more astonishingly, he did it with a zest uncommon in a judicial culture that dislikes rhetorical flair almost as much as it distrusts intellectual vigour. In dissents in cases such as References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (defending the principle of federalism) and Trinity Western University v. Law Society of Upper Canada (defending religious freedom), he skillfully punctured majority decisions that read Laurentian fashion into the constitutional text. And in Frank v. Canada (a non-resident voting case)

he wrote perhaps the most intellectually stimulating 

ruling in recent Supreme Court history, questioning the Court's very conception of rights and their bounds.But I do not want to give the notion that his legacy is solely based on his dissents. Brown, a convincing writer and amiable colleague, was equally skilled at drawing his colleagues together in a majority opinion as he was at dissecting them from the minority. His absence creates a gaping intellectual void on the Court. The Supreme Court is a more jurisprudentially diverse body today than it was eight years ago when he joined, but there is always the risk that it would revert to its old habits of lax collegiality. If it succeeds, future justices and scholars will have Brown's wealth of good writing and clear thought to challenge, inspire, and shake them out of their all-too-Canadian complacency.His track record in the Supreme Court is exceptional.By Joanna Baron, contributing writer at The Hub and executive director of the Canadian Constitution Foundation.