Alberta Chief Justice Ritu Khullar dies at 62 following cancer battle

Ritu Khullar, Alberta's Chief Justice, died on September 3 at age 62, surrounded by family. The Alberta Court of Appeal announced her death on Friday.

Khullar was sworn in as Chief Justice in February 2023, succeeding Catherine Fraser who held the role since 1992. She was the first woman of South Asian descent to serve as a provincial chief justice in Canada.

Born in Fort Vermilion and raised in Morinville, Khullar attended the University of Alberta before enrolling at University of Toronto law school in 1988. She spent most of her career at Chivers Carpenter (formerly Chivers Greckol and Kanee), practicing human rights, labour, privacy and constitutional law. She was appointed to the Court of Queen's Bench in 2017 and to the Court of Appeal in 2018, where she argued landmark Supreme Court cases involving gay rights, privacy rights of sexual assault victims, and the rights of obese airline passengers.

Khullar had surgery over the 2025 holiday season and had been on medical leave since January. She died of cancer. Dawn Pentelechuk is serving as acting chief justice.

Kara O'Halloran, a lawyer at Chivers Carpenter, said of Khullar: "There's a reason she was elevated to the position she was in, because she was up for that task. It's a shame that we can't see all that she would have done because it would have been remarkable, I have no doubt." The Alberta Court of Appeal released a statement calling her "a respected jurist whose intellect, thoughtfulness, and compassion were reflected in her work."