EN :

Long rejected as a means of interpretation of the Civil Code, the travaux préparatoires have recently been rehabilitated ; henceforth nothing will be opposed to the consultation of the Codiflers' Reports or of the Report on the Québec Civil Code by the Civil Code Revision Office. Parliamentary debates, however, are not yet to be quoted. But, taking into account the restrictive interpretation recently given to Reader's Digest case, in addition to what the preamble of the Act to establish a new Civil Code and to reform family law expresses, the author considers it justified to come back to the Journal des Débats to light the finality of certain dispositions ulterior to Office Report.

EN :

This paper examines the tension between centralizing and decentralizing forces in systems of land use planning. Its thesis, drawn from the LaHaye Report, is that the degree of centralization of the system is directly proportional to the breadth of jurisdiction of the planning authority. While Quebec's system of land use planning is reputed to be decentralized and political, the author questions whether this assessment is correct. The role of the government under the Land Use Planning and Development Act and other specialized legislation is more in accordance with the centralized and technocratic systems advocated in earlier Quebec proposals for land use planning. This conclusion is reinforced by a consideration of the suggestions put forward in Le Choix des régions and their present-day application.

EN :

The collective book edited by G. Rubin and D. Sugarman, Law, Economy and Society, 1750-1914 : Essays in the History of English Law (1984) is well illustrative of the main trends of the new history of law that is now flourishing particularly in England and the United States. The twelve studies conducted by the contributors reveal the diversity of theoretical issues, subjects of inquiry, methodological strategies and sources of data that characterize the new history of law. In contrast with the more traditional and formal history of legal institutions, the entire book also expresses the critical stance the discipline is seeking to adopt, relying on sociology and other social sciences in order to apprehend law from an external rather than merely doctrinal point of view.

EN :

Section 88 of the Indian Act states that all laws of general application in force in any province are applicable to Amerindians, subject to certain exceptions. In a recent judgment, Dick v. R., commented upon here in, the Supreme Court of Canada gives to this provision an interpretation considered by the author to be incomplete and debatable. She therefore attempts to assess the implications of such interpretation.

EN :

The author trys to find some rational justifications for the power of the State to impose penal sanctions. He explains why in some exceptional situations the mecanisms of the penal system cannot be replaced by other alternatives.

The State has to maintain its power to impose penal sanctions in three particular cases : in the case of dangerous offenders such as multirescidivists : in the case of persons who are not willing to execute the « alternative » measures ; and, most important, in the case of new offenses like impaired driving or crimes against the environment where the state has to be very tough. These are crimes of great danger for society and the offenders are often conscious of the dangerous nature of their conduct.

EN :

The multinational enterprise (MNE) is clearly a major factor for economic development but it exacts a heavy toll upon nations : a genuine loss of economical and political autonomy. Both home and host countries may feel their national goals put in jeopardy due to centralized decisions and commercial practices of this type of firm. Thus, nations have conceived a wide variety of controls seeking to sway the behavior of the MNE but such controls tend to exacerbate tensions between home and host countries while compelling the MNE to work amidst contradictory regulations in an uncertain environment. On the international level, many agreements have been concluded or are being discussed within different organizations but none of them has resulted in a binding act with compelling effects on the MNE. Nonetheless, if these agreements are considered to be a pledge to pursue future multilateral action, they may be completed by an all-encompassing collection of industrial and financial data on MNE's as well as by bilateral conventions on the conditions of foreign investment.

EN :

For historic reasons — legal traditions, language issues and lawyers' inhibitions — there has never been an authoritative, monolingual French legal dictionary in Canada. Since the publication in 1985 of the first edition of the Dictionnaire de droit privé by the Quebec Research Centre on Private and Comparative Law, this gap is now being filled. The interdisciplinary team engaged in this far-reaching lexicographic project is comprised of both legal and linguistic experts. Problems arising from the interaction of the French and English legal traditions in Canada are discussed. This paper outlines the principles and methods involved, derived primarily from a Canadian-based jurilinguistics, and the uses to which they are put.

EN :

The law of languages truly is new ground for legal thinking and even may be considered futuristic in as much as it is law that recognizes differences among men. In this respect, the Loi sur la langue officielle and the Charte de la langue française of Québec confirm the right to specific linguistic expression in the form of acts that are territorially and materially exhaustive — these laws are outstanding examples for anyone who is interested in comparative law of languages. Nonetheless, the law of languages profoundly touches upon concepts that are of capital social importance : culture, minority language rights and fundamental freedoms. Furthermore, the very object of linguistic legislation which of course is language, is per se an object that hardly lands itself to appropriation either linguistically or legally — and as a basic means for expressing legal thought, language simultanously is the subject and object of law dealing with meta-legal and meta-linguistic concepts.

Lastly, there exist in Québec important restrictions of both a structural and operative nature that relate to the interpretation and enforcement of Quebec law on language usage. This is why the legal impact of language laws, in general, and Quebec law, in particular, is of minor importance, whereas the cultural impact is of major concern.