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Mahmud Jamal (born July 20, 1967) is a Canadian jurist serving as a puisne justice of the Supreme Court of Canada since 2021. Jamal worked as a partner at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt and taught law at McGill University and Osgoode Hall Law School before he was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario in 2019. He was nominated to the Supreme Court on June 17, 2021, taking office on July 1 to succeed Rosalie Abella. Jamal was born in Kenya to a family of Indian Kenyans origin, making him the first person from a Visible minority to serve as a justice of the Supreme Court.
In 1981, his family moved again, immigrating to Canada, settling in Edmonton, Alberta, where he graduated from Ross Sheppard High School. In 1984, Jamal studied at the London School of Economics for a year and earned a bachelor of arts (B.A.) in economics from Trinity College at the University of Toronto in 1989.
After his undergraduate education, Jamal attended the McGill University Faculty of Law, graduating with a bachelor of laws (LL.B.) and bachelor of civil law (B.C.L.) in 1993. Jamal then earned a master of laws (LL.M.) from Yale Law School in 1994, which he attended as a Fulbright scholar.
In 2009, Jamal represented Imperial Oil in a Financial Services Tribunal case fighting a Financial Services Commission of Ontario order for the company to restructure its pension fund in a manner that would cost Canadian dollar16.5 million to set up and $65 million to back. Jamal represented KPMG, which was then in court over its offshore tax avoidance scheme for high-net-worth individuals involving shell corporations in the Isle of Man. In 2016, because of ongoing litigation, Jamal wrote a letter to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, requesting that specifics of the case not be discussed so that it would not prejudice the ongoing case. In response, chair Wayne Easter imposed a gag order, and expert witnesses were not allowed to talk about KPMG in the next committee session.
Jamal also taught as professor of constitutional law at McGill University and administrative law at Osgoode Hall Law School. He has served stints as a director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Advocates' Society, and the Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. Jamal has also been a member of the Supreme Court Advocacy Institute and has served as a trustee for the Canadian Business Law Journal.
On June 24, 2019, Jamal was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario on the advice of Justin Trudeau to replace Justice Gladys Pardu, who became a supernumerary judge.
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