Volume 18, numéro 4, 1977

EN :

The rules of partnership are not without incidence upon the delictual and contractual responsibility of professionals practicing in common. The influence of such rules are here examined in relation, first of all, to the number of partners that can be personally held liable for professional faults committed by one or several members of the group and, finally, to the extent of their liability in such case.

EN :

Civilizatio means for the author the phenomenon of integration in the State Law of some rules of Canon Law, by opposition to the notion of Canonizatio, put out forward by V. del Giudice, illustrating the opposite operation, viz. the integration into Canon Law of rules of the State Law.

The author illustrated this phenomenon of Civilizatio in the Civil Law of Québec, and more specificaly in relation to article 127 of the Québec Civil Code.

The Despatie Case is taken as the dividing point of the article. In the first part (The Apogee of Civilizatio) the author underlines the extensive interpretation of article 127 that allows the courts to accept the religious impediments of marriage. This civilizatio, until 1921 went further; the Québec courts limited themselves to ratifying the decisions of the ecclesiastical tribunals. However, this civilizatio of the jurisprudence found a few opponents among the judges.

The second part (The Decline of civilizatio) is dedicated to the study of the Despatie Case and its effect on Québec jurisprudence. This decision of the Privy Council has not been followed unanimously by the Québec courts. The author points out how some courts have followed the precedent reluctantly, while others have set the precedent aside explicitly or implicitly, for different reasons, one of those reasons being that the interpretation given by the Privy Council to article 127, reducing it to a mere matter of conscience, made it empty of any juridical sense. Nevertheless, in 1972 the Québec Court of Appeal laconically confirmed the decision of the Privy Council.

This article, at the same time, explicitly illustrates the phenomenon of civilizatio, and implicitly illustrates the practice of certain jurisdictions which empowers the courts not only to interpret a legal provision, but also to alter its meaning.

EN :

The purpose of this article is to advocate the realization of a comprehensive Index for Quebec's statutes and regulations.

The Index would naturally follow the permanent consolidation now under way but would also be available as an independant research tool.

First, the computer-generated text for the establishment of basic data and the time and space limits of the proposed Index is examined.

Second, ways of completing and organizing the vocabulary are studied to avoid lapses and render searching easier.

The third step proposes the addition of a set of complementary lists such as, for example, local applications, popular titles, time restrictions etc.

Finally the author expresses his views on editing, publishing and distributing and concludes with an overall enthusiastic feeling as to the advantages and potential uses of the Index.

FR :

Une corporation qui désire obtenir du capital sur le marché public doit informer les épargnants de son intention et renseigner ces personnes sur la nature et le sérieux de l'entreprise. La décision de participer au financement d'une corporation ne se prend qu'après avoir consulté le prospectus, le document essentiel d'une telle démarche.

Pour assurer le succès d'une telle sollicitation financière, les promoteurs ont parfois exagéré la situation réelle de la compagnie et n'ont pas hésité à faire de fausses représentations sur la santé économique de leurs entreprises. L'incidence de la fraude et de la négligence à ce stade du financement public a donc donné lieu à une jurisprudence abondante dans la Province et à des législations spéciales.

Cet article étudie, à la lumière de notre droit provincial, cet aspect bien particulier du droit corporatif tout en examinant de façon incidente l'approche de nos tribunaux et du Législateur au problème de préserver dans leur intégrité les règles du droit civil québécois face à l'assaut séculaire de la common law.

EN :

This article is a modified version of a paper delivered at a Conference on the methodology of planning and development held at Trois-Rivières on May 19-20, 1977.

Much of municipal control of urban development in Canada today is carried out through the regulatory process. Master plans, zoning, subdivision control and building by-laws are the mainstays of this system.

In recent years, the legislatures of most Canadian provinces have incorporated in their respective Planning Acts certain mechanisms designed to improve the municipal regulatory response to the challenge of urban change. These mechanisms often appear to be needlessly complicated, whereas they are in fact designed to circumvent certain difficulties which are inherent in the classical regulatory system. The main objectives which these new mechanisms seek to attain are greater flexibility in the decision-making process, better phasing of development and increased public participation at all levels of planning and decision-making.

This article concentrates on the law of the province of Québec, but reference is frequently made to the legislation of other Canadian jurisdictions in order to indicate which avenues might be followed in Québec in order to reform the law governing municipal planning by-laws.

After a brief introduction, the second Part of this article is devoted to canvassing the principal legal rules governing municipal planning bylaws: first, with respect to by-laws in general; second, with respect to the extent of the limited powers delegated to municipalities; third, with respect to the adoption and amendment procedure for planning by-laws.

The third Part is devoted to a comparative analysis of certain legal mechanisms some of which have become commonplace in other Canadian provinces but which remain largely untried in Quebec. These include minor variances, conditional uses, bonus zoning, site plan by-laws, contract zoning and development control. All of these techniques tend to favour greater flexibility in the administration of land-use planning.

Other devices are more useful in seeking to achieve phased development. These include holding by-laws and the requirement that land be serviced before a building permit will issue (the latter technique has been in use in Quebec for many years and is authorized to a limited extent by statute).

The article concludes by pointing out that some of the mechanisms canvassed would be of considerable use to town planners in Quebec and should be recognized by statute, preferably in the forthcoming Planning Bill which the present government has promised to introduce in the near future. Town planners should be wary of using them without such legislative sanction, however, because the Canadian courts, with limited exceptions such as in the case of holding by-laws, have struck down attempts by municipalities to step outside the limited statutory authority vested in them.

EN :

The Security Law Committee of the Civil Code Revision Office of the Province of Quebec issued its report late in 1975 ; it advocates fundamental changes in the law of security. According to the Committee, the notion of hypothec should be broadened in Quebec Law. It would become a form of security interest in all kinds of property, moveable or immoveable, corporeal or incorporeal. Legal privileges and construction liens would disappear.

The authors comment on the reforms advocated by the Committee. They sommarize their main aspects and some of their effects on existing legal and commercial practices. They suggest a reassessment of the outright abolition of construction liens and discuss some of the problems raised by the regulation of hypothecary recourses in the Report.

EN :

The Civil Code Revision Office has produced an interesting report on legal personality. In this commentary, the authors have sought to underline the major changes suggested by the Report and to criticize certain positions adopted therein.

The major areas of controversy, such as the respect of privacy, the rights of children and the nature of corporations as fictitious persons have been examined in some detail. On the whole, the Report produces a fine compendium of the existing rules whilst suggesting changes that reveal a conscience of the urgent problems on the question.

EN :

In the Province of Quebec, the Provincial Court constitutes one of the most important benches after the Court of Appeal and the Superior Court. At its beginning in 1869, the Provincial Court was termed the Magistrate's Court and its juridiction was very circumscribed. The constitutional problem arising from the existence of such a court was not obvious as it is today.

In 1867, when the B.N.A. Act was drafted, the powers concerning the administration of justice in the Province, including the constitution, maintenance and organisation of provincial courts, both civil and criminal, and including procedure in civil matters, were conferred on the provinces by section 92(14). But by section 96, it was provided that the Governor General should appoint the judges of the Superior, District and County courts in each province.

These provisions of the B.N.A. Act are extremely confused, so that more than 130 published cases have not succeeded in clarifying definitively the interpretation of sections 96 and 92(14), and such a situation imperils the stability of the judiciary in the Canadian provinces.

For the analysis of section 96 of the B.N.A. Act, we must refer to some concepts in English Law about Superior Courts and Inferior Courts. The Magistrate's Court, now the Provincial Court in Quebec, has in fact replaced the Circuit Court whose competence was exercised by judges of the Superior Court appointed by the Federal Government. It is not obvious that in 1867 the Circuit Court was an inferior bench in the mind of the drafters of the B.N.A. Act. At that time the inferior courts in the Province of Quebec were the Commissary Courts and the Justices of the Peace.

In 1869 when the Magistrate's Court was established, nobody was wandering about the constitutional question because the jurisdiction of the Court was limited to the collection of municipal and school taxes and to suits actions in which the amount was less than $ 25.00. But in 1888 and 1889 when the Provincial Legislature attempted to replace the Circuit Court in the District of Montreal with the Magistrate's Court, the Federal Government disallowed the laws because judges appointed by the Provincial Government were invested with powers which were up to that time exercised by judges appointed by virtue of section 96 of the B.N.A. Act. The Federal Government was then invited to appoint judges especially affected to the Circuit Court of Montreal, but the Magistrate's Court continued to exist in other judicial districts without extent of jurisdiction.

In 1922, the Provincial Legislature tried agin to raise the powers of the Magistrate's Court by transferring to it all the functions exercised by Superior Court judges in the Circuit Court. But at this moment, the Federal Government did not intervene with it's disallowance power. So, once the delay for disallowance had expired, the Provincial Government continued to raise the competence of the Magistrate's court until the abolition of the Circuit Court in 1952.

Since 1952, the powers of the Magistrate's Court have not ceased to grow. In 1965, with the adoption of the new Code of Civil Procedure, the name of Magistrate's Court was changed to become the Provincial Court.

In spite of it's importance, the constitutional question is not yet settled, and whatever method we use, we cannot justify the constitutionality of the Provincial Court.

Several methods have been elaborated by judges to interpret section 96 of the B.N.A. Act. The particularist method consists in appreciating if a board or a bench is invested with powers which, in 1867, were exercised by judges appointed by the Federal Government. If so, the bench is considered inconstitutional.

Another method is the functionalist method by which it is presumed that the judicial function should be exercised only by judges appointed by virtue of section 96. This method is not very often used.

Finally, there is the globalist method which is more comprehensive but also more abstract, which consists in the recognition of the fact by the growth of its jurisdiction the Provincial Court has become a superior, district or county Court.

Whatever method is used, it is very difficult to establish the constitutionality of the Provincial Court in the Province of Quebec. This situation incites a reflexion about the opportunity of section 96 of the B.N.A. ACT which restrains the Province from adopting judicial reforms that are very necessary. If after 110 years, we are not clear about the interpretation that should be given to section 96, we shall never be. In the actual context, the arguments presented by the Fathers of the Confederation for the drafting of section 96 are not very pertinent. If we examine other federal constitutions in foreign countries, it appears that in every case the drafters of such constitutions carefully avoid the situation in which we are placed by section 96 of the B.N. A. Act.

Perhaps the better solution for us is the abrogation of section 96 of the B.N.A. act.