Laws passed by the National Assembly in Quebec challenged by provincial bar. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot

QUEBEC – The Quebec Bar Association has called on the Quebec Superior Court to declare all of the province’s laws, regulations and decrees unconstitutional.

The provincial bar, joined by the Montreal bar, argues in a 21-page brief that the Quebec National Assembly does not respect the requirement in the Canadian Constitution that all Quebec laws must be adopted in French and English.

The bar, representing 22,500 lawyers, filed its demand for a declaratory judgment in court last Friday, naming assembly Speaker Jacques Chagnon and Attorney General Stéphanie Vallée as defendants. On Monday, Vallée said the government would contest the bar’s position.

“The laws are presented, they are adopted, they are sanctioned in the two official languages,” Vallée told reporters.

“The Quebec government respects its constitutional obligations and we do not at all share the opinions of the Quebec bar,” she added.

Véronique Hivon, the Parti Québécois justice critic, said the Quebec assembly “respects to the letter” the requirement that laws be adopted in French and English, adding she was “completely flabbergasted” that the bar has resorted to the “nuclear option” in suing the Speaker and the government.

Hivon said the Canadian constitution also guarantees the right of parliamentarians in Quebec to use French or English, but that Quebec is the only jurisdiction in Canada where French is the only official language.

She said the logic of the Bar’s position is that Quebec legislators “should master perfectly French and English,” a position that leaves her “very troubled.”

The bar argues that all Quebec laws are unconstitutional but specifically in its brief, uses the example of revisions to the Code of Civil Procedure, a key Quebec law setting out the rules courts in the province must follow.

The bar says the bill revising the procedure code was adopted in French only.

All the more than 300 amendments to the bill were written and debated in French only and when the bill was adopted in 2014 by the Parti Québécois government, opposition Liberals objected there was no English version, the brief notes.

The bill adopting the revised Code of Civil Procedure was sanctioned on Feb. 21, 2014 and the English version was not available until March 14, 2014.

In its brief, the bar notes that the English version of the Code of Civil Procedure “is not the work of the legislator, but rather the fruit of the interpretation by the translators of the National Assembly.”

There were complaints from the beginning that the English version of the Code was not the same as what was written in French.

As a result, the bar said, there were three “administrative revisions” of the new Code in May 2014, December 2015 and December 2016.

The law revising the Code of Civil Procedure was adopted under the PQ, but the process began under the Liberals.

In 2011, the bar proposed to the assembly that the bar could work on the English version, an offer that was rejected.

The bar also submitted in 2011 a legal opinion by former Supreme Court of Canada justice Michel Bastarache who said the assembly was not respecting Section 133 of the 1867 British North America Act, requiring Parliament and the legislatures of Quebec, Manitoba and New Brunswick to adopts all laws in both languages.

The bar raised the issue again in 2013, but the government did not change its procedures regarding the use of English.

The bar suggested to the justice minister in 2015 that the National Assembly hire lawyers with a perfect mastery of English to assist in the legislative process.

There is no requirement that Quebec government laws speak English.

In response the assembly established a committee on the translation of bills to English, which recommended the hiring of two English-speaking lawyers.

The bar notes in its brief there was no follow up on this proposal.

In a final attempt to settle the issue, the bar met with representatives of the attorney general and the assembly speaker on March 14, 2018.

There was no agreement and the bar then commissioned the Montreal firm Jeansonne Avocats to seek a declaratory judgment.

The bar proposes that the assembly be given an 18-month period of grace to rectify the situation.

Before Bill 101, Quebec’s Charter of the French Language was adopted in 1977, bills presented in the Quebec legislature were drafted in French and English, as is the practice the federal Parliament.

Bill 101 initially proposed that the French version of laws was the official version.

A 1979 ruling by the Supreme Court overturned that provision.

But the assembly continues to publish bills in French, with a separate English version.