Your search

Punitive damages have always attracted a lukewarm reception in Quebec law. This article analyses the recent de Montigny and Ward judgments of the Supreme Court, which resolve some important issues about which Quebec doctrine and case law were divided. First, the Supreme Court stated that punitive damages constitute an autonomous remedy that may be sought independently of a condemnation in compensatory damages. It also held that punitive damages may pursue the goals of punishment, deterrence and denunciation. Lastly, the Court sends a message of moderation as regards the quantum of punitive damages.

La présente étude s'interroge sur les conséquences, en droit canadien, de l'entrée en vigueur de la Convention internationale relative aux droits de l'enfant. La première partie traite des événements qui ont conduit à la promulgation de la Convention au plan international et explique le mécanisme de la mise en œuvre du droit international dans le contexte fédéral canadien. La deuxième partie évalue les suites données à la Convention par les législateurs fédéral et provincial québécois ainsi que son influence sur les tribunaux canadiens. Depuis l'entrée en vigueur de la Convention au Canada, elle a eu un impact certain sur les modifications législatives concernant les enfants, particulièrement en ce qui a trait au nouveau Code civil du Québec. De plus, la Cour suprême du Canada semble tout à fait disposée à utiliser la Convention comme une norme supplétive d'interprétation de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

Under the common law, it is widely accepted that punitive damages may be awarded in situations where a defendant’s conduct has been malicious, oppressive or abusive. An award of exemplary damages seeks to punish the defendant, acts as a deterrent to the defendant and to others from acting in this manner and expresses the outrage of the court regarding the defendant’s behavior. On the contrary, under Quebec law, the awarding of punitive damages remains exceptional in nature.

Québec is a distinct society because of its history, its legal system, and its values. Our analysis examines the delicate issue of the relationship between the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Québec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and the Civil Code of Québec, the primary expression of Québec's jus commune, as noted in its Preliminary Provision. As of the nineteenth century, a doctrinal trend born of the desire to protect the integrity of the civil law system grew worried about the "disruptive" influence of the common law on the civil law and, more specifically, on the Civil Code of Lower Canada. The doctrine later expressed reluctance as to the entry of fundamental rights into Québec private law. The charters of rights were, and are sometimes still, perceived as disruptive elements, capable of distorting the Civil Code. We want to show that the influence of human rights philosophy on Québec's jus commune is not only inevitable but desirable. The Civil Code and, more broadly, Québec's jus commune, can only be enriched by respect for fundamental rights.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

The Universal Declaration on Human Rights was pivotal in popularizing the use of ‘dignity’ or ‘human dignity’ in human rights discourse. This article argues that the use of ‘dignity’, beyond a basic minimum core, does not provide a universalistic, principled basis for judicial decision-making in the human rights context, in the sense that there is little common understanding of what dignity requires substantively within or across jurisdictions. The meaning of dignity is therefore context-specific, varying significantly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and (often) over time within particular jurisdictions. Indeed, instead of providing a basis for principled decision-making, dignity seems open to significant judicial manipulation, increasing rather than decreasing judicial discretion. That is one of its significant attractions to both judges and litigators alike. Dignity provides a convenient language for the adoption of substantive interpretations of human rights guarantees which appear to be intentionally, not just coincidentally, highly contingent on local circumstances. Despite that, however, I argue that the concept of ‘human dignity’ plays an important role in the development of human rights adjudication, not in providing an agreed content to human rights but in contributing to particular methods of human rights interpretation and adjudication.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

In AB v. Bragg, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that fifteen-year-old AB should be allowed to use a pseudonym in seeking an order to disclose the identity of her online attacker. By framing the case as one pitting the privacy interests of a youthful victim of sexualized online bullying against principles protecting the free press and open courts, the SCC approached but ultimately skirted the central issue of equality. Without undermining the important precedent that AB achieved for youthful targets of online sexualized bullying, the author explores the case as a missed opportunity to examine the discriminatory tropes and structural inequalities that undergird the power of this kind of bullying. Viewed through an equality lens, enhanced access to pseudonymity for targets is not necessarily about privacy per se, but rather an interim measure to respond to the equality-undermining effects of sexualized online bullying—a privacy mechanism in service of equality.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

Although it has long been acknowledged that heuristics influence judicial decision making, researchers have yet to explore how sentencing guidelines might interact with heuristics to shape sentencing decisions. This article contributes to addressing this gap in the literature in three ways: first, by considering how heuristics might help produce the phenomenon of sentence clustering, in which a significant proportion of sentences are concentrated around a small number of outcomes; second, by reflecting on the role of sentencing guidelines as a feature of the environment within which sentencing decisions are made; and third, by analysing the guidelines from Minnesota and from England and Wales, theorizing how their content might interact with heuristics to make clustering more or less likely. Ultimately, we argue that sentencing guidelines likely affect the role played by heuristics in shaping sentencing decisions and, consequently, that their design should be informed by research evidence from the decision sciences.

Disclaimer: This summary was generated by AI based on the content of the source document.

Recent amendments have underscored punitive aspects in sentencing. This is apparent in the multiplication of mandatory minimum sentences, restriction of conditional sentences, limitation of credit for pre-sentence custody, and doubling the victim surcharge with no discretion for exemption. Apart from their specific effects, these amendments signal a reorientation of the principles and objectives of sentencing expressed in Part XXIII of the Code and in the jurisprudence that has evolved since 1996. They diminish the importance of rehabilitative and restorative aims in favour of greater retribution. As a result, they alter several principles of sentencing that remain in the Code as they were enacted in 1995 - including proportionality, individualization and totality. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]