Francophonie, Justice in Official Languages and Legal Dualism

The Office Francophonie, Justice in Official Languages and Legal Dualism welcomes you

Highlights

International Francophonie

The Department of Justice develops legal cooperation policies and programs in the international francophone space, notably those implemented in Haiti by the Government of Canada or the International Organization of La Francophonie.

Justice in Official Languages

We invite you to read the newsletter "Justice in Official Languages"

A few examples of projects funded by the Access to Justice in Both Official Languages Support Fund:

Access

"Médiation familiale - Une formation en français"
[Family mediation – French-language training]

Legal French training for justice system professionals who provide family mediation services, and development of French professional tools and resources to improve access to family mediation services. (Association des juristes d’expression française de l'Ontario)

Access to justice in French for young Francophone immigrants

Workshops combining awareness about issues related to justice in official languages and information on careers in justice for Francophones aged 14 to 30 from racial and ethnocultural minorities in Toronto. (Réseau des femmes afrocanadiennes francophones)

Services

Educaloi

Development of new legal information tools and adaptation of the content of the "Côtécour" page to the needs of Quebec’s English-speaking community, and promotion and distribution of Éducaloi content to members of Quebec’s English-speaking community, including the native community. (Éducaloi)

Portrait of the French justice system in Nova Scotia

Analysis of legal services available in French in Nova Scotia in order to improve access to justice in both official languages for the Francophone and Acadian populations. (Association des juristes d’expression française de la Nouvelle-Écosse)

Communities

Information sessions on seniors rights

Information sessions for seniors on topics such as linguistic rights, criminal law and human rights. (Association des juristes d’expression française du Nouveau-Brunswick)

"Faire carrière en justice, ça vous dit?"
[How about a career in justice?]

Workshops on various fields of law offered to young Francophone immigrants in Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Edmonton. The project also includes a job fair on careers in justice and training on cultural skills for justice system workers. (Réseau des femmes afrocanadiennes francophones)

"Ateliers Droit au quotidien"
[Workshops in everyday law]

Education and information workshops presented in French schools in British Columbia on the use of French in certain fields of law, including human rights and environmental law. (Association des juristes d’expression française de la Colombie-Britannique)

Tour of Francophone communities in Newfoundland and Labrador

Provincial tour to promote access to justice in both official languages. (Public Legal Information Association of Newfoundland and Labrador)

Training

Training initiative to improve access to justice in Alberta

A project to improve French-language legal services offered in Alberta. The various components include the development of a university course on the Canadian justice system and careers in justice, courses to maintain legal French skills, and the creation of a community justice centre for vulnerable groups. (University of Alberta, Campus Saint-Jean)

French training at Robson Hall

Development of a curriculum of compulsory and elective courses in French for law students who wish to improve and practise their legal vocabulary in French. In the longer term, the project aims to offer a complete French legal studies certificate program. (University of Manitoba)

Provincial criminal courts

National training program on legal French, specifically geared to the needs and realities of provincial criminal court judges. (Provincial Court of New Brunswick)

Centre canadien de français juridique

Advanced French legal terminology training and development for clerks, probation officers and Crown prosecutors. (Centre canadien de français juridique)

Legal Dualism

The Legal Dualism website has a new look. It now features several new browsing functionalities that streamline consultation of its contents. Here is what you can find on the website:

The Legal Dictionary of Property in Canada (LDPC)

The bisystemic and bilingual Legal Dictionary of Property in Canada offers over 300 articles describing the vocabulary of property for Canada's civil and common law systems.

LDPC: Additional studies

Digest of definitions cited by the Supreme Court of Canada

Comprised of some 500 definitions cited by the Supreme Court of Canada over the last 30 years, this supplement includes over 300 frequently-used words in several fields of law.

LDPC Corpus

The search engine now allows you to explore the textual database of court decisions from which the excerpts cited in the LDPC articles are drawn. This corpus consists of over 400 decisions, with each decision displayed in a bilingually-aligned format.

Translation of monolingual excerpts cited in the LDPC

Translated especially for the LDPC, these 124 excerpts drawn from 73 judgments rendered by various Canadian and foreign jurisdictions, can now be consulted using the LDPC headword index.

Publications and presentations

All publications and presentations offered by the Legal Dualism Team are grouped – and available for consultation – under a new section of the website.

In the works

Etymological studies of key concepts in property law (Part I)

This series of 21 studies focuses on the origin of the current meaning of some 30 words used in contemporary English and French. These studies offer a historic portrait of key concepts in property law in Canada and highlight how these words are used in civil law and common law.