Civil Code of Lower Canada

Codification of the civil law of the province of Lower Canada

The Civil Code of Lower Canada was a law that was in effect in Lower Canada on 1 August 1866 and remained in effect in Quebec until repealed and replaced by the Civil Code of Quebec on 1 January 1994. The Code replaced a mixture of French law and English law that had arisen in Lower Canada since the creation of the British Province of Quebec by the Royal Proclamation of 1763, as modified by the Quebec Act in 1774.

From 1608 to 1664, the first colonists of New France followed the customary law in effect for their province of origin in France. In 1664, the King of France decreed in Article 33 of the decree establishing the French West India Company that the Custom of Paris would serve as the main source of law throughout New France. Later, authorities went on to add le droit français de la métropole, that is, French law. This included royal decrees and ordinances (ordonnances royales), canon law relating to marriages, and Roman law relating to obligations, e. g., contracts and torts. Also in force were the ordinances issued by Royal Intendants (ordonnances des intendants) and the orders and judgments handed down by the Conseil supérieur. The Royal Intendant was responsible for administering justice in the colony, and lawyers were barred from practicing in the colony. Most disputes were resolved by local notaries or local parish priests through arbitration in a manner much as had been done in ancient Rome. While the reliance on feudal French law meant that New France was divided into fiefs (seigneuries), the manorial lords (or seigneurs) were not entitled to the same judicial discretion in New France as they had in France; as it was, all criminal jurisdiction went to the Intendant. Therefore, while the Custom of Paris was the law of New France, there were few resources available for colonists to actually enforce that law.

Following France's relinquishment of Canada in favour of Guadeloupe in the Treaty of Paris, Canada came under British law. However, the seigneurial system of land tenure continued to be applied uniformly throughout the province. In 1774, as a result of a ruling by the British courts in Campbell v Hall about the status of legal systems found in acquired territories, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act, which preserved French civil law for private law while keeping and reserving English common law for public law, including criminal prosecution. As a result, modern day Quebec is one of a handful of jurisdictions in the world where two legal systems co exist. The Quebec Act was opposed by the English minority who believed that British citizens should be governed by English law. The Constitutional Act of 1791 resolved the dispute through the creation of Upper Canada west of the Ottawa River (subject to English common law) and Lower Canada around the St. Lawrence River (where civil law was maintained).

From 1888 to 1979, the Code was amended to reflect the various social and commercial changes occurring within Quebec society. In 1890, the Parliament of Canada ousted articles 22792354 of the Code with the passage of the Bills of Exchange Act. Work commenced in 1955 on the revision of the Civil Code of Lower Canada, which eventually led to the passage of the Civil Code of Quebec by the National Assembly of Quebec on 8 December 1991, brought into effect on 1 January 1994. The repeal of the CCLC did not affect those provisions that affected areas within federal jurisdiction, which continued to be in force in Quebec (insofar as they had not been displaced by other federal Acts) until they were finally repealed by the Parliament of Canada on 1 June 2001. The same legislation also provided framework provisions relating to marriage in the Province, that were "to be interpreted as though they formed part of the Civil Code of Québec."