(Image Credit: Bill Sundhu/Facebook)

By Victor Kaisar

Sundhu Retires

Longtime Kamloops lawyer and former judge Bill Sundhu announces retirement

Jan 25, 2026 | 3:10 PM

KAMLOOPS — Longtime Kamloops lawyer and former provincial court judge Bill Sundhu is calling time on a career than spanned four decades.

In a post on social media Sunday (Jan. 25), Sundhu announced that he is stepping away from a “wonderful and rewarding professional legal career.”

“I come from humble circumstances where few gave me a chance,” Sundhu said. “Determination, pursuing my true passion for knowledge, law and justice, and a deep belief in a Canada where anything is possible, has far exceeded the imagination of a teenager from a small town.”

Born in New Westminster and raised in Williams Lake, Sundhu’s father was the first person from India to permanently settle in the Central Cariboo in the 1950s.

Sandhu was called to the bar in 1984, and was appointed as a provincial court judge in 1996 at the age of 37.

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He resigned as a judge in 2007 following a run in with the law, though the charges were later stayed.

Sundhu has a Master’s Degree in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford, and has practiced domestic and international human rights law and criminal justice. He was on the List of Counsel of the International Criminal Court in The Hague and helped train the judiciary in Tunisia in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring.

Sundhu has also served as the criminal law duty counsel for the Haida Gwaii Court circuit and is a founding member of the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies of B.C. He also served a multi-year term as an executive member of the Canadian Bar Association’s criminal justice section.

A recipient of the King’s Coronation Medal in 2024, Sundhu sat on the Board of Governors at the University of British Columbia between 2018 and 2024, and briefly served as interim board chair.

“It has been a privilege to serve 42 years in the courts of justice and international fora,” Sundhu added, as he thanked his colleagues, mentors, mentees, educators and the people he represented.

Sundhu was also the NDP candidate in Kamloops–Thompson–Cariboo in the 2015 and 2021 federal election, but finished in second place behind Cathy McLeod and Frank Caputo respectively.

As he hangs up his robes, Sundhu says he is looking forward to spending more time with family and friends while pursuing new challenges.

“I do not plan to ‘slow down’ in the conventional way,” Sundhu said, noting “there is much yet to do.”