Homage À Paul-André Crépeau – a Giant of Law Reform

The papers recently carried the news of the death of Paul-André Crépeau, C.C., O.Q., c.r., LL.D., D.h.c., m.s.r.c., who I would argue was the most influential law reformer in Canadian legal history.

From the initial invitation in 1965 from Jean Lesage’s Justice Minister Claude Wagner to take over the Office de Révision du code civil, originally set up during the Duplessis years with Thibaudeau Rinfret and André Nadeau, Crépeau’s vision and his life work was la révision du Code civil, and under his leadership the Office focused on the daunting task of updating the general provisions of a century-old Code. The Office de Révision du code civil was originally set up during the Duplessis years with Thibaudeau Rinfret and André Nadeau, but only really blossomed with Crépeau.

Crépeau’s background was unusual for someone who was so closely identified with the civil law tradition. He was born in rural Saskatchewan, and obtained his Licence in Philosophy at the University of Ottawa (1947), followed by a B.C.L. at the Université de Montréal (1950). He won a Rhodes Scholarship that took him to study common law and comparative law at the University of Oxford and a Bachelor of Civil Law (1952) and a doctorate at the Université de Paris (1955). He began his career as an assistant professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Law (1955-1959), and soon after joined the McGill University Faculty of Law (1959-1994), and after that a doctorate in classical civil law from the Université de Paris. He had six earned degrees and seven honorary doctorates, and was honoured with a Festschrift on his retirement. He was justly honoured in Ottawa and Québec

In 1965, Professor Crépeau was entrusted by the Québec government to reform the Civil Code. As the president of the Civil Code Revision Office, he aspired to create a work that would serve as a “collective reflection on the very foundations of private law institutions”. In 1978, this work culminated as a presentation to the National Assembly of the Draft Code Civil, accompanied by explanatory Commentaries. It served as the framework for the project (bill) which eventually became the new Civil Code of Québec, adopted in 1991 and came into force on 1 January 1994.

The story of the new Code is one that is known to too few Canadian lawyers – a helpful interview can be found here. The Justice Minister at the time the new Code was implemented, Gil Rémillard, was justly proud of the project, but he was at most the sage homme – and Crépeau and his team, the ones who did the intense intellectual study and design, that resulted in today’s Code.

Radio Canada’s obituary is here, and the Law Faculty’s here.

He dedicated his professional life to studying and developing Canadian civil law from a comparative law perspective as well as to promoting the French-inspired civilian tradition, in Canada as well as internationally. With a hat tip to my colleague – and occasional blogger – Alejandro Manevich, here is a cartoon from the Barreau’s Journal this month, which illustrates the point.

After his work on the Code, he dedicated his work to the Centre de recherche en droit privé et comparé du Québec, which has a remarkable set of publications.

Peut-il reposer en paix.