Two Quebec law faculties have been rated as two of the best 100 in the world to study law by the Times Higher Education (THE) World University rankings.
McGill University’s law faculty, headed by Robert Leckey, was ranked 17th worldwide, maintaining its hold in the global top 20 since THE began publishing rankings specific to law in 2017.
The Université de Montréal’s law faculty was ranked 51st, climbing an impressive 42 spots.
An unusually public clash between the Quebec Justice Minister and the Chief Justice of the Court of Quebec has materialized over competing visions on how to deal with conjugal and sexual violence cases, with little signs of abating.
The simmering skirmish between the executive and the judiciary erupted in the open shortly after Chief Justice Lucie Rondeau announced on Sept 28th the creation of a new division within the Court of Quebec to deal with conjugal and sexual violence offences, two weeks after the Quebec government tabled a bill that would move away from the traditional criminal justice framework to deal with gender-based violence and create a “specialized” court to deal with these offences.
Odds are that the federal government is going to legalize single-event sports wagering. The Safe and Regulated Sports Betting Act (Bill C-218) was unanimously passed by the House of Commons, and is currently before the Senate.
Similar private member’s bills have previously made it this far, but this time it’s different. The bill has all-party support, and has the backing of the sports industry and police, both of which opposed legislation in the Senate in 2015. A 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a federal law prohibiting single-event sports betting outside of Nevada, giving each state the power to decide whether to allow it within their borders, has changed the North American gaming landscape, adding pressure on Ottawa to follow suit as 30 states and counting have either launched legal sports betting or passed legislation. “The U.S. Supreme Court decision was probably a trigger point because once it becomes regulated in the U.S. then you ask what is fundamentally different about that form of entertainment in Canada from the U.S,” notes Don Bourgeois, former General Counsel for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) and now counsel with Fogler, Rubinoff LLP.
The Quebec Court of Appeal, exasperated by provincial government inaction, delivered a rare but stinging rebuke over recurring systemic unmitigated delays in securing trial transcripts that disproportionately affect English-speaking appellants which “regrettably” puts into question the proper administration of criminal justice in Quebec.
Calling for a paradigm change in approach, the Quebec Court of Appeal issued clear and explicit guidance over the preparation and production of trial transcripts as litigants in criminal proceedings should “not be left without judicial remedies” when they face unreasonable appellate delays resulting from the “state’s inaction.”
“There are many bottlenecks in the system which may eventually need to be addressed by the Court in appropriate cases,” warned Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Robert Mainville in Dhingra c. R. 2021 QCCA 22.
“A culture of complacency, of neglect and underfunding has unfortunately characterized the preparation of appeal records, often leading to unreasonable delay in the prosecution of appeals. This is most often reflected in the inadequacies related to supplying timely trial transcripts, particularly with regard to English-language transcripts,” added Justice Mainville.
“The Quebec Court of Appeal was absolutely within its rights and did well to highlight the problem, especially because of all the injustices that it may lead to, particularly with people who are incarcerated and who want to exercise their legitimate rights to appeal a decision,” remarked Trois-Rivières criminal lawyer Michel LeBrun of Lacoursière LeBrun LLP and head of the criminal defense lawyer’s organization, Association québécoise des avocat(e)s de la défense (AQAAD).
A Montreal criminal lawyer behind a constitutional challenge of Quebec’s legal aid disbursements’ system and a motion to revamp the legal aid fee system lost his bid after Quebec Superior Court held that it was a political matter.
In a long-awaited decision by the Quebec legal community, with several high-profile criminal defense lawyer’s associations as well as the Quebec Bar joining in the effort, Superior Court Justice Manon Lavoie held that while the issue deserved attention it was an administrative issue that had nothing to do with the constitutional rights of the litigant who raised the matter.
The heads of Quebec’s law schools welcomed a new bill that would allow law students working at university legal clinics to give legal advice and consultations under the supervision of lawyers and notaries, a development that would finally put them within reach of what law students in the rest of the country can provide.
After three years of negotiations, the Quebec government and the provincial bar association reached an agreement to raise legal fees and to establish an independent working group that will conduct an exhaustive review of the tariff structure.
The agreement, widely perceived to be a “step in the right direction” by the Quebec legal community, calls for a five per cent retroactive increase in legal aid fees for the period of October 2017 to May 2019, and a 14.7 per cent increase in fees from June 2019 to September 2022.
Months after the Covid-19 pandemic forced the near shutdown of courts across Canada and paved the way for virtual justice, a Quebec lawyer and researcher is hoping that judges and lawyers will be alert to the unintended consequences of conducting justice through the use of technology.
Quebec is joining the ranks of growing Canadian jurisdictions following the recent implementation of an online e-filing system, the latest provincial government initiative that is accelerating the technological shift in the justice system in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under pressure to deliver legal services in spite of Quebec‘s public health state of emergency, notaries in the province have been given the go-ahead by the Quebec Ministry of Justice to sign notarized documents remotely.
The chief executive of Alphabet and Google made it plain. Artificial intelligence needs to be regulated. It is too important not to, wrote Sundar Pichai in a Financial Times opinion piece.
“The only question is how to approach it,” said Pichai succinctly.
That’s what the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) is grappling with as well.
Four men who bilked an 87-year old former teacher suffering from dementia were ordered by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal to pay her family nearly $380,000 in damages for financial exploitation and for preying on her vulnerable state.
“Evidence clearly demonstrates the defendants used their postion to the detriment of Ms. Even’s interests, who was an elderly person, handicapped and vulnerable,” held Judge Mario Gervais in Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (Even) c. Lessard (Calfeutrage Multi-Scellant), 2020 QCTDP 3.
“The Court concludes that the defendants breached her right to the protection against exploitation, in violation of s. 48 of the (Quebec) Charter.”
But Judge Gervais also has choice words against the financial institution that Gemma Evens, since deceased, used. Judge Gervais said he is “perplexed” by the little action that a Laurentian Bank branch took when it noticed that $313,000 was taken out from her bank account over an 18-month period.
“This amount is stunning by its magnitude, given Ms. Even’s financial habits,” noted Judge Gervais. “It is distressing that the bank accepted Ms. Evan’s responses (when questioned about her withdrawals), without considering alerting competent authorities in spite of the presence of worrisome signs of financial exploitation.”
An ambitious strategic plan unveiled by the Quebec Ministry of Justice outlines measures the provincial government expects to implement over the course of the next three years to curb criminal and penal court delays, accelerate the deployment of technologies in the justice system, boost the use of alternative dispute resolution and improve access to justice.
The plan, while lauded by legal experts for laying out concrete actions to deal with endemic issues plaguing the provincial justice system, has also been criticized for taking on too much in a rather short period at a time when government financial resources are constrained.