Quebec Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal of Quebec uses the Royal Arms of the Queen in right of Quebec, commonly called the Quebec Coat of Arms, to represent the Queen as the font of justice being administered by the court.

The Court of Appeal for Quebec (frequently referred to as Quebec Court of Appeal or QCA) is the highest judicial court in Quebec, Canada.

Édifice Ernest-Cormier, the Quebec Court of Appeal building on Notre-Dame Street in Old Montreal.

The Court of Appeal of Quebec (in French: la Cour d'appel du Québec) It hears cases in Quebec City and Montreal. The quorum of the Court of Appeal of Quebec is three judges.

As a "Superior Court" under section 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867, Court of Appeal judges are appointed by the Governor-General of Canada (in practical terms, the Prime Minister of Canada). Appointees must be members of the Quebec Bar, but need not have had previous experience as a judge. However, appointees almost always have some experience as a judge, usually on the Superior Court of Quebec.

Under the Code of Civil Procedure of Quebec and the Criminal Code of Canada, someone wishing to appeal a decision of the Superior Court of Quebec generally has 30 days to file an appeal with the Court of Appeal. Civil cases usually must have at least $50,000 in dispute to be heard. The Court of Appeal will overrule a lower court decision if it is "incorrect" on a question of law or "patently unreasonable" on an important factual finding. The Court of Appeal almost never hears witnesses, and lawyers' oral and written submissions are kept to strict maximum lengths. A normal case will take several months from filing of an appeal to a decision by the Court of Appeal, but the Court may hear a case within hours or days in an emergency.

Appeals of Court of Appeal decisions are heard before the Supreme Court of Canada, which is located in the federal capital of Ottawa, Ontario.

The ability of the Supreme Court of Canada, which has six of its nine justices from common law provinces and only three from the civil law province of Quebec, to overrule the Court of Appeal of Quebec has occasionally been raised as a political issue by Quebec nationalists^{[citation needed]}, who worry that it erodes Quebec's distinctive legal culture. (In practice, issues of civil law are heard at the Supreme Court by its three Quebec members plus two of its common law members).

Perhaps the most (in)famous decision of the Court of Appeal was Morgentaler v. The Queen (1974), in which the Court of Appeal overturned a jury decision acquitting Montreal Doctor Henry Morgentaler of performing an abortion, despite Morgentaler publicly admitting that he had done so. This was the first time in Canada that a jury acquittal had been replaced by a conviction, on appeal, rather than a new trial being ordered. The Court of Appeal was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1975. Subsequently Parliament amended the Criminal Code of Canada removing the ability of provincial courts of appeal to substitute jury acquittals with convictions.

History

The Court was created on May 30, 1849 as the Court of Queen's Bench (in French, Cour du Banc de la Reine). In 1974 it was officially renamed the Quebec Court of Appeal.[1]

Current Judges

Position	Name	Appointed	Nominated By	Position Prior to Appointment
Chief Justice	Nicole Duval Hesler	November 22, 2006 October 7, 2011 (as Chief Justice)	Harper	Quebec Superior Court Court of Appeal
Justice	Marc Beauregard*	May 1, 1980	Trudeau	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Jacques Chamberland*	June 10, 1993	Mulroney	Deputy Attorney General for Quebec
Justice	André Forget*	May 9, 1996	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	France Thibault	December 1, 1998	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Louis Rochette	February 1, 2000	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	François Pelletier	June 6, 2000	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Benoît Morin*	December 4, 2001	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	André Rochon*	February 26, 2002	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Pierre J. Dalphond	October 1, 2002	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Yves-Marie Morissette	November 7, 2002	Chretien	Professor at McGill Law
Justice	Allan R. Hilton	September 26, 2003	Chretien	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	François Doyon	May 7, 2004	Martin	Court of Quebec
Justice	Julie Dutil	September 24, 2004	Martin	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Marie-France Bich	September 24, 2004	Martin	Professor at Universite de Montreal Faculty of Law
Justice	Paul Vézina*	February 25, 2005	Martin	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Lorne Giroux	February 25, 2005	Martin	Professor at Université Laval Law
Justice	Jacques Dufresne	May 13, 2005	Martin	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Jacques A. Léger	January 22, 2009	Harper	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Nicholas Kasirer	July 31, 2009	Harper	Dean of McGill Law
Justice	Guy Gagnon	September 29, 2009	Harper	Chief Justice of the Court of Quebec
Justice	Jean Bouchard	October 1, 2009	Harper	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Richard Wagner	February 3, 2011	Harper	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Jacques R. Fournier	October 7, 2011	Harper	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Marie St-Pierre	April 10, 2012	Harper	Quebec Superior Court
Justice	Clément Gascon	April 10, 2012	Harper	Quebec Superior Court

• *supernumerary judge

Previous Justices

• Julien Chouinard (1974 - September, 1979)
• Claire L'Heureux-Dubé (1979 - April, 1987)
• Louis LeBel (June, 1984 - January, 2000)
• Morris Fish (June, 1989 - August, 2003)
• Marie Deschamps (March 1992 - August, 2002)
• Jean-Louis Baudouin (May 1989 - 2008)

External links

• Official website