Civil Code of Quebec Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Civil Code of Québec (CCQ) is the legal text defining civil laws in the province of Quebec, Canada. Except for certain parts of the book on the Law of the Family which was adopted by the Legislative Assembly in the 1980s the CCQ came into effect on January 1, 1994, thus replacing the Civil Code of Lower Canada as first written and adopted in 1866 before the enactment of the British North America Act by the British Parliament in 1867.
From 1608 to 1664 the first colonist to New France continued to follow the law of their origin, i.e. the custom (or la coutume in French) that was in force in the province of France from whence the colonists came.
In 1664 the French King decreed in "l'Édit d'établissement de la compagnie des Indes occidentales" (art. XXXIII) that la Coutume de Paris was applicable throughout New France. Also added was "le droit français de la métropole". This included various royal legislation, royal ordinannce (ordonnances royales), canon law for marriage and roman law for the law of obligations (les obligations, i.e. contracts and delicts). Also applicable were the ordinances of the Royal Intendants ("les ordonnances des intendants") and the decisions of the Conseil souverain ("les arrêts de règlement du Conseil souverain").
As this Edict was applied the Royal Intendant was responsible for the justice in the colony and avocats were not allowed to practice in the colony. Most disputes were resolved by local notaires or the local parish priests by arbitration in a manner much as had been done in ancient Rome. While there were many seigneuries in New France and under French feudal law the lords of these jurisdictions had judicial powers (high and low jurisdiction), those grants by the French crown never included a grant of high (capital crimes) or low (minor offences) jurisdiction as those powers were reserved for the Intendant. Low jurisdiction was a manner in which some local disputes could be resolved by the local seigneur according to his whim — even that power was reserved for the Intendant in New France. Thus while the Custom of Paris was the law of New France there was little mechanism for actually enforcing that law available to the residents of the colony.
Initially the French law was not applied in the colony after the British conquered the colony and the French crown relinquished it in the Treaty of Paris (1763). From 1759 to 1763, martial law prevailed in the country, allowing for all sorts of injustices to go on. In 1763, the British declared that the French civil was inapplicable, thus continuing a period of legal uncertainly. However, the seigneurial system of land tenure continued to be applied uniformly throughout the province. In 1774, after over a decade of political struggles between the French Canadian majority and the newly arrived British minority, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act which restored the former French civil law, while maintained British criminal law. The court procedures were uniformly British both in the civil and criminal realms. The comprise of 1774 was not acceptable to the British minority who kept demanding that English law prevails in the colony. In 1791, the Constitutional Act resolved the issue by separating the Province of Quebec in two, creating Upper Canada west of the Ottawa River and Lower Canada around the St. Lawrence River. Thus, Lower Canada kept its civil law and English law was applied to Upper Canada.
The substantive law of the 1866 Civil Code of Lower Canada was derived primarily from the judicial interpretations of the law that had been in force in Lower Canada. The work of the Commission on codification was also inspired by some of the modernizations found in the 1804 Napoleonic code. The structure of the Code was also inspired by the Napoleonic code. The Civil Code of Lower Canada replaced most of the laws inherited from the "Customs of Paris" (La Coutume de Paris) and incorporated some English law as it had been applied in Lower Canada such as the English law of trusts. The former Civil Code was also inspired by the Louisiana Civil Code, the Field Code movement in New York and the law of the Canton du Vaud.
As society modernized and Quebec underwent substantial transformation after the Quiet Revolution, a move was also afoot to transform the civil law of Quebec and moderize it as well. In 1955, the Government of Québec embarked on a reform of the Civil Code with the passage of the Act respecting the revision of the Civil Code. The Civil Code Revision Office was established. Consultations were held on the reports produced by the Office and the committees which were subsequently incorporated into a final report tabled in the Québec National Assembly in 1978 in the form of a Draft Civil Code with commentaries. Extensive consultations occurred during the 1980s when the certain parts of the Book on the Law of the Family were adopted. That process of consultation was completed in the early 1990s and the CCQ was passed into law on December 8, 1991 coming into effect in 1994.
The current Civil Code is a complete restatement of the civil law in Quebec as of the date of its adoption including judicial interpretation of codal provisions that include broad privacy and personality rights protection and the adoption of a section on the patrimony of affectation.
Recent amendments to the Code include a provision for civil union allowing unmarried and same sex couples the opportunity to have legal protection to despite their unmarried states.
The reform of the Civil Code of Lower Canada was one of the largest legislative recodification undertakings in any civil law jurisdiction.
The Civil Code of Quebec contains 10 books, each one defining civil law in a specific domain:
This is an Article on Civil Code of Quebec. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Civil Code of Quebec History of the Civil Code of Québec
During the French Empire
Under the British Empire
Adoption of the Civil Code of Lower Canada
The Revised Civil Code of Quebec
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