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VIII. Quebec Law and Procedure
1. Overview
Quebec is among the few Canadian provinces, if not the only province, where law is practised regularly both in the English and French languages. This distinct feature of practising law in the French language makes Quebec sometimes less accessible to other jurisdictions because of the language barrier.
It is important, however, to note that the majority of lawyers practising in Quebec are bilingual and can easily give advice in both languages. A claim can be prosecuted in Quebec in both the French and English languages, where written proceedings can be in one language for a plaintiff and in another language for a defendant. These types of situations are regularly seen when litigation is conducted in the City of Montréal but, more often than not, most of the litigation in cities other than Montréal will be in French.
Another important difference that resides in Quebec is that the province operates under a civil law code (Civil Code of Quebec or CCQ), as opposed to the other nine provinces and all the territories, which operate under a common law system. The fact that Quebec is governed by a civil code does not mean that common law is not at issue in proceedings in Quebec, inasmuch as common law may govern litigation that is conducted before the Federal Court of Canada, which sits both in the City of Montréal and in the City of Québec in the province of Quebec.
From a procedural point of view, proceedings in Quebec are conducted under the Code of Civil Procedure of Quebec (CCP) which is similar, to a certain extent, to the various rules of practice found in the common law provinces.
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