Law in Quebec

News about Quebec legal developments

judiciary

  • Judicial appointments stir tempest in a teapot

    The latest series of judicial appointments to Quebec Superior Court federal Justice Minister Arif Virani have stirred a tempest in a teapot after some French media outlets castigated Justin Trudeau’s government for appointing Liberal donors and supporters to judgeships in Quebec.

    The Journal de Montréal and the Quebec legal publication Droit-Inc noted that four judges appointed in the past year by Ottawa were donors to the Liberal Party of Canada. Between January 2024 and January 2025, federal Justice Virani appointed some twenty judges to the Quebec Superior Court, a fifth of them who had contributed to the federal Liberals or campaigned in favour of their positions.

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  • Bill aims to curb delays but stakeholders call for more resources

    A new bill that seeks to curb delays in the justice system and rein in stays of proceedings will be conferring new powers to the justices of the peace by allowing them to oversee criminal court appearances and bail hearings, a development that has received lukewarm praise by Quebec’s main legal actors who were longing for more monies into the system.

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  • Class action motion judges facing pushback from Quebec Appeal Court

    The Quebec Court of Appeal has overturned no less than eight lower court decisions over the past year that denied class action certification, signaling a possible discord that shows little sign of abating between motion judges more likely to cast a critical eye and the higher court intent on strictly adhering to case law and the teachings of the Supreme Court of Canada, according to class action experts.

    With the Quebec justice system under severe strain, beset by underfunding and vexed by a dire shortage of court personnel, with more than 20 per cent of employees resigning in a year, leaving many Quebec judges compelled to share judicial assistants, class action lawyers speculate that motion judges are taking a harder line on the viability of class actions, all the while taking into consideration the impact it would have on an overtaxed justice system. “Perhaps what is happening is that trial judges have a more concrete understanding of the fact that there are already too many class actions going on in Quebec, be it at the authorization stage or at the trial level,” said Éric Préfontaine, a Montreal class action defence lawyer with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. “There seems to be some kind of disconnect between the assessment some motion judges make” and the Appeal Court.

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  • Former Quebec Superior Court Chief Justice reflects on challenges posed by pandemic and lack of resources

    After seven years at the helm of Quebec Superior Court, the last two particularly challenging and exhausting, Justice Jacques Fournier has stepped aside and became a supernumerary judge, with the reins being handed to Marie-Anne Paquette, a puisne judge of the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Montreal.

    In a tenure he described as not “not being a calm river” or not without obstacles, former Chief Justice Fournier began his mandate in 2015 dealing with the introduction of a new Quebec Code of Civil Procedure, a major reform that “needed to be assimilated” as it granted judges broader case management powers and bestowed a greater role to the principle of proportionality, followed by the landmark Jordan ruling and a legal battle with the Court of Quebec over monetary thresholds that wound up before the nation’s highest court, culminating with coming to grips with the “very demanding” pandemic.

    “The decision (to step down) was very difficult, extremely difficult,” the 71-year old Justice Fournier told me. “I am going to miss it. But after seven years, you also have to know when to leave. At some point, it takes its toll without realizing it. I loved it, but there’s more to life than that.”

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  • Quebec appeal court serves timely reminder over linguistic rights

    Less than a year after delivering a stinging rebuke to the Quebec government over recurring systemic unmitigated delays in securing trial transcripts that disproportionately affect English-speaking appellants, the Quebec Court of Appeal served a timely reminder over the importance of linguistic rights after it ordered a new trial for a convicted drug trafficker whose right to be tried in English was violated.

    The decision, brimming with practical guidance aimed particularly at trial judges and Crown prosecutors, reiterates that courts that hold criminal trials “must be institutionally bilingual,” restates that it strongly favours consecutive translation over simultaneous interpretation in criminal trials, and prohibits so-called whispering interpretation from being practiced as it is “inconsistent” with s. 530.1(g) of the Criminal Code and guidance issued by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Tran, [1994] 2 S.C.R. 951.

    “This is a timely decision,” noted Martine Valois, a law professor at the Université de Montréal who wrote a book on judicial independence. “This is a problem, and it does no service to the accused or the justice system. This is not a political and linguistic issue, and it has nothing to do with the French fact in Quebec or the survival of French language. It’s really an issue over the rights of the accused (and ensuring that the) justice system be institutionally bilingual.”

    The ruling also underscores yet again that the Quebec justice system is plagued by a systemic lack of resources, added Quebec City criminal lawyer Julien Grégoire of Gagnon & Associés, avocats.

    “It’s very difficult to understand how, five years after the Jordan decision, we in Quebec can still find ourselves in this situation,” said Grégoire. “A major drug trafficker was granted, unfortunately but fittingly as far as I am concerned, a new trial to basically allow him to have access to fair justice in the language of his choice and in a process that minimally but truly respects his right to a trial in the language he understands best.”

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  • A Quebec judge reflecting on challenges they face

    At times, judges publicly muse over the challenges they face. In a discourse given a few years ago, Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Allan Hilton reflected on judges and lawyers grappling with the challenges emanating from Quebec’s unique cultural and linguistic make-up.

    Here are some excerpts:

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Law in Quebec
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