From: ce11son@yahoo.ca   
      
   On Wed, 13 Aug 2014 02:33:11 +0000 (UTC), John Levine    
   wrote:   
      
   >>>As has been outlined in that newspaper report, the next step in the   
   >>>process is the court appearance in September.  Follow it, and   
   >>>appreciate that Canada's legal system is not American.   
   >>   
   >>State courts in the United States uses a legal system based on the English   
   >>legal system. What's Canada's based on, Somalia's? I found a Web page   
   >>of a criminal attorney in Toronto that refers to preliminary hearings,   
   >>but for all I know, Quebec has exceptional procedures.   
   >   
   >Quebec law is based on pre-Napoleonic French law, but the criminal   
   >procedures seem to be mostly harmonized with the rest of Canada.  The   
   >Canadian legal system only separated from the British   
   >   
   English!   
   but it was never part of the English system, rather than adopting   
   Common Law on the English model progressively from the late 18th   
   century   
   (says http://www.gregmonforton.com/origin-of-canadian-law.html ).   
   It would IMU have effectively gone its own way consequential to the   
   British North America Act 1867 before which time statute law would   
   have originated from the Westminster parliament. Being a Common Law   
   system means it borrows (and gets borrowed from) when necessary from   
   other such jurisdictions when no appropriate local source is available   
   so judgements can have references from various parts of the world near   
   and far. This borrowing also results in non-domestic influence on   
   domestic statutes giving you e.g. "Culpable homicide" in the CAN   
   Criminal Code dealing with defining criminal homicide, the phrase   
   originating from Scots Law rather than English Law (although in Canada   
   it describes the whole group of criminal homicide offences rather than   
   the narrower Scottish offence of criminal homicide not amounting to   
   murder).   
   The "borrowing" across Common Law systems seemed to be fairly well   
   demonstrated a few years ago in an English civil case involving   
   someone who killed himself in police custody, the reference sources   
   for the final appeal coming from a "world tour" of Common Law systems   
   in various Commonwealth countries and the US; some of those sources   
   IIRC themselves involved earlier borrowing from other jurisdictions.   
      
   >in the 20th   
   >century, so there really are significant differences from US practice.   
   >As a trivial example, lawyers still wear wigs and robes in court.   
   >(I've seen them.)   
   >   
   >There will indeed be a preliminary hearing.  That's what will happen   
   >in September.  This web site gives a useful overview of Quebec   
   >criminal procedure:   
   >   
   >http://www.educaloi.qc.ca/en/capsules/criminal-and-penal-cases-   
   ourt-quebec-procedure   
      
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