Volume 25, Number 2, 1984

EN:

The split decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Yeshiva University case in 1980 highlighted the difficulties inherent in appliying American labour laws to the university milieu. This paper considers whether a similar problem exists in Quebec today in regard to the notion of employee found in the Quebec Labour Code and the functions of a university professor.

The author first characterizes a professor's work on the basis of the role and responsabilities assigned to him by the different constitutive laws of the Quebec universities in order to establish, in a second section, to what extent this type of occupation is compatible or not with the carefully analysed notion of employee as it is found in the Quebec Labour Code.

While this study does not support the conclusion that the associations of university professors should not have been accredited in the first place, nor that decisions to that effect could have been or still could be reversed as in the case of Yeshiva, nor even that these accreditations were detrimental to the university milieu, it does show that the provisions of the Quebec Labour Code inadequately reflect the realities of the Quebec university milieu. It points out the direction possible changes should take to correct this problem.

FR:

L'auteur s'intéresse dans cet article à la partie XXI du Code criminel relative aux délinquants dangereux. L'évolution historique des dispositions législatives concernées est tracée à l'aide d'une comparaison avec la législation en vigueur en 1977. Les problèmes juridiques découlant de ces dispositions et les objectifs de la législation sont ensuite présentés ainsi que la procédure spécifique d'obtention d'une sentence de période indéterminée. L'auteur décrit les difficultés d'application de la loi et identifie certains résultats incongrus transparaissant de la jurisprudence récente. De plus, l'impact potentiel des articles 1, 9, 11 et 12 de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés sur la partie XXI du Code criminel est évoqué.

L'auteur critique les procédures de remise en liberté des délinquants dangereux et suggère que les tribunaux plutôt que la Commission nationale des libérations conditionnelles soient habilités à rescinder une sentence de période indéterminée.

L'article conclut en recommandant que les dispositions existantes de la loi relatives aux délinquants dangereux soient abrogées et qu'un nouveau régime sentenciel, excluant l'option d'une sentence pour une période indéterminée, soit établi. L'auteur suggère également, advenant que la législation actuelle relative aux délinquants dangereux perdure, que soient réévaluées les règles de preuve et d'audition responsables de l'échec du système existant.

EN:

In order to remind those taxpayers who forgot to pay tax on some of their income, the search and seizure procedures have been put back to work in the last few years.

This article does not question the validity of the principle itself. However, it analyzes the frequent problems that arise with respect with the seizure, whether they be related to an overzealous civil servant or to the agreement given by the judge. It also finds that more and more judicial procedures are available to the taxpayers to help them in their fight against the taxman.

EN:

As Professor Wade rightly reminds us : « The powerful engines of authority must be prevented from running amok ». The control of the legality of administrative action by the ordinary courts prevents such action being arbitrary or unreasonable. But in sitting in judgment upon the administration, does not the judge risk usurping the role of the administrator ? This is a real misgiving which many authors share : they complain of « Government by judges ».

The present article (based upon a public lecture delivered at Laval University in October 1983) considers this aspect of judicial control, especially in relation to certain recent decisions of the English superior courts.

EN:

The jurisdiction of the youth court depends on the age of the person who appears before it. Since the federal Young Offenders Act came into effect, the minimum limit has been established at twelve years of age. Consequently, sections 12 and 13 of the Criminal Code have been repealed.

In the Province of Quebec, before Bill 60 came into effect, the lower age limit was fourteen years. Since the bill came into force, however, the Youth Protection Act has become essentially a law of protection and all federal offences must be treated in accordance with the Young Offenders Act. Many reasons persuaded the legislator to lower the minimum age from fourteen to twelve years of age, but it seems that the most convincing was a decline of the age of juvenile criminality.

Finally, the Young Offenders ACt establishes the maximum age limit at eighteen years of age and standardizes that age accross Canada from April 1, 1985. Reasons of uniformity, equity and constitutionality have influenced the legislator in setting the upper age limit at eighteen years of age.