The duty reproduces here the text of the speech delivered on February 5 by Quebecer Daniel Turp during his installation as corresponding member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institut de France.
I have a special thought today for my mentor, colleague and friend Jacques-Yvan Morin, who was a corresponding member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institut de France from 1986 until July 26, 2023, today of the death of this “great academic with an exemplary career” who saddened the intellectual and political circles of Quebec. To have been elected last December 11 in place of the law professor and former vice-premier of Quebec, a “benevolent being” and “a statesman”, is a great honor. I would like to thank the dean of the “Legislation, Public Law and Jurisprudence” section, President Gilbert Guillaume, for promoting my candidacy to the Academy.
Within this Academy, which is proud to describe itself as a “space for discussion where points of view can freely intersect, with a common requirement for intellectual rigor”, I hope to make contributions that meet such a requirement. I had the opportunity to speak, here on May 30, 2016, as part of the series of conferences on “Law in international life” where I focused my intervention on “Quebec and the international law “. But, it is now as your corresponding member that I will be interested in the subjects that you will put on the Academy’s agenda.
On “Justice”, this “perilous subject”, to use the formula chosen on January 5 by academician François Sureau in his “A few words on justice” delivered at the opening of the present series of conferences on the theme “Regards on justice”, I will allow myself an observation aimed at provoking, even nourishing, our collective reflection.
Our jurisdictions, both in Quebec and in France, do not refer to “Justice” in their respective names. In Quebec, and in application of the jurisdiction vested in the National Assembly to make laws on the “administration of justice”, a Court of Quebec, a Superior Court of Quebec and a Court of Appeal of Quebec were created . There is also an Administrative Tribunal of Quebec as well as several other specialized administrative tribunals, whose names in no way suggest their duty to do justice.
With regard to France, except for one notable exception, the jurisdictions of the judicial order, the administrative order and the Conflicts Tribunal do not dare to present themselves, in their respective names, as courts or tribunals of ” justice “. Only an exceptional French jurisdiction is an “exception”. Created in 1993, the Court of Justice of the Republic (formerly the High Court of Justice) is qualified as a court of justice. If its existence is contested and its abolition has been promised more than once since its creation, perhaps it is perceived – and still is today – as not being able to truly do “justice” when it judges crimes or offenses committed by members of the government in the exercise of their functions.
As with poets, words, for the lawyer, have weight. They should undoubtedly have it even more for French and Quebec legislators and constituents. Why then is the word “justice” absent when we name our judicial institutions? Are we afraid of disappointing, to repeat the remarks made in this Academy on January 15 by Jean-Marc Sauvé in his communication entitled “Regard on judicial justice after the report of the Estates General on justice”, “the need and the waiting for justice.”
As the honorary vice-president of the Council of State recalled in this communication, these needs and expectations remain “paradoxically strong”. His report carried out a remarkable work of clarification and re-foundation to which the government and the French Parliament seem to have given a rather satisfactory response to date, elevating justice to the rank of “a major public policy which cannot and must not be neglected”.
Similar work of clarification and refoundation is necessary in Quebec. As France did in 2021, it is time to convene a Estates General on justice in Quebec. The holding of such states general was also called for in 2016 by the President of Quebec, Ms.e Claudia Prémont. This recalled that the last real general consultation on questions of justice had taken place in Quebec in 1992 and rightly affirmed “that Quebec society had been profoundly transformed, but [que] the justice system has not[vait] not evolved at the same pace”, further highlighting the “problems of accessibility and underfinancing of justice”.
These problems are hardly resolved today and have been added to those relating to the delays in access to justice governed by the concept of “time ceiling”, which is at the origin of injustices felt by many victims and of collective frustrations with the Quebec justice system.
By asking “Is a more democratic justice possible?” “, Professor Pierre Noreau, president of the Quebec Institute for the Reform of Law and Justice, suggested that “the debates surrounding the appointment of judges or their activity are also likely to shake the reputation of the justice system. justice “. Some would assert that the debates which have taken place on this question – but also on the very topical question of the dismissal of judges – during the last two years have affected this reputation and have not been exhausted.
Many other questions deserve to be on the agenda of the Estates General on justice in Quebec and it is to be hoped that the current Minister of Justice of Quebec proposes, inspired by the French example, that a major collective reflection is launched and a major public policy also aimed at “doing justice to citizens” sees the light of day in Quebec.
I thank you once again for your warm welcome in this august enclosure and I intend to participate in a dynamic and interested manner in the work of this Academy, which I will see, I am sure, is right to present itself as the “ daughter of the Enlightenment.