ment, le juge qui maintient la loi et ignore l'acte de l'usurpateur remplit un devoir sacré. Et s'il arrivait que la magistrature abuserait de son autorité supérieure, ne peut-on pas encore ajouter que le remède est entre les mains de la Législature en forçant le juge de justifier devant elle de sa bonne conduite? D'ailleurs ce droit d'appréciation des actes des législatures coloniales ou inférieures n'est pas nouveau dans le droit public Anglais. Il a été maintes fois exercé par les tribunaux de l'Empire et des Colonies; et il suffit de référer aux autorités suivantes pour s'assurer qu'il y est incontestable. * La question a été récemment soulevée et discutée avec autant de talent que de science devant la Cour Suprême de Terreneuve, dans la célèbre cause de Carter v. Le Mesurier, décidée le 20 Mai 1870, et rapportée au 6me. volume du Canada Law Journal. Les requérants pour bref de prohibition contre tous les membres d'un comité d'élection se plaignaient d'irrégularité et illégalité de leur part. Le Procureur-Général comparut pour eux et protesta contre l'intervention judiciaire dans ce qu'il considérait les procédés de l'Assemblée Législative. "The Committee," disait-il, "being a part of the Assembly "itself, and being appointed by that body for the purpose of conducting and determining an inquiry into the claims of certain parties to seats in the House, to prohibit it from proceeding in "accordance with the orders of the House would be an illegal "interference with the exclusive powers and privileges of the "Assembly, for which no authority or precedent could be found." Le Banc à l'unanimité lui répondit:-" Both Houses of the Assembly possess, as incident to their existence, all rights ne"cessary for the due discharge of their legitimate functions, but "the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, "in a case which arose in Newfoundland thirty-two years ago, "Kielley v. Carson, and has been affirmed by several other deci"sions in the same High Court of Appeal, has denied and for ever set at rest the pretensions which once were raised by "Colonial Legislatures, that, under the assumption that the "Law of Parliament" applied to them, their will was law, and * Kielly v. Carson, 4 Moore, P. C. 63; Fenton v. Hampton, 11 id. 347; Doyle v. Falconer, L. R. 1 P. C. 328; Re Brown, 33 L. J. (N.S.) Q. B. 193; Cuvillier v. Aylwin, 2 Knapp, 72; Bank of Australia v. Nias, 16 Q. B. 733; Craw v. Ramsay, Vaugh, 292. "their proceedings were unexaminable by the Superior Courts. "It is altogether visionary to imagine that any Legislative As"sembly, body or person, possesses under British rule supremacy over the law in any particular whatsoever. Even the prototype "of Colonial Legislatures does not claim for itself any such "power, for in a recent work of no ordinary ability upon Parlia mentary Government in England, I find the following passage: "No mere resolution of either House, or joint resolution of both Houses, will suffice to dispense with the requirements of an "Act of Parliament, even although it may relate to something "which directly concerns but one Chamber of the Legislature: ' "Todd's Parliamentary Government, 260." 66 Enfin si la question était même tout-à-fait nouvelle parmi nous, il faudrait, la résoudre dans le même sens, sur la seule autorité de la jurisprudence des Etats Unis, établie sous un régime constitutionnel presqu'identique. À une époque aussi reculée que 1803, à l'enfance même de la République, la Cour Suprême des Etats Unis proclamait ce principe comme d'ordre public et de l'essence même des institutions fédérales. "If an act of the legislature," disait-elle * repugnant to the constitution, is void, does it, notwithstauding its invalidity, bind the courts, and oblige them to give it effect? Or, in other words, though it be not law, does it constitute a rule as operative as if it was a law? This would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; and would seem, at first view, an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. It shall, however, receive a more attentive consideration. "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. So if a law be in opposition to the constitution; if both the law and constitution apply to a particular case, so that the court must either decide the case conformably to the Law, disregarding the constitution; or conformably to the constitution, disregarding the law; the court must determine which of these conflicting rules governs the case. This is of the very essence of judicial duty. "If then the courts are to regard the constitution; and the constitution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the constitution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply. "Those then who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, are reduced to the necessity of maintaining that courts must close their eyes. on the constitution, and see only the law. "This doctrine would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions. It would declare that an act which, according to the principles and theory of our government, is entirely void; is yet, in practice, completly obligatory. It would declare, that if the Legislature shall do what is expressely forbidden, such act, notwithstanding the express prohibition, is in reality effectual. It would be giving to the legislature a practical and real omnipotence, with the same breadth which professes to restrict their powers within narrow limits. It is prescribing limits, and declaring that those limits may be passed at pleasure." En 1829 le principe fut encore affirmé par le même tribunal dans la cause de Bank of Hamilton v. Dudley's Lessee. * Per Marshall C. J. :-" The judicial department of every government is the rightful expositor of its laws; and emphatically of its supreme law. If in a case depending before any court, a legislative act shall conflict with the Constitution, it is admitted that the court must exercise its judgment on both, and that the Constitution must control the act. The court must determine whether a repugnancy does or does not exist, and in making this determination, must construe both instruments. That its construction of the one is authority, while its construction of the other, is to be disregarded, is a proposition for which this Court can perceive no reason." Le language que tiennent les tribunaux des Etats est aussi précis. The right" disait en 1815 le juge Martin pour la Cour Suprême de l'Etat de la Louisiane † "which courts of justice have to refuse their co-operation to the execution of unconstitutional laws is no longer a question. It results from the obligation contracted by the judges to support the Constitution, the fundamental and Supreme Law of the State, which no authority can shake." * 2 Peters 524. † Johnson v. Duncan, 1 Martin N.S. 654. En 1826, le juge Porter pour la même cour disait. * "The counsel for the plaintiff on the argument of the cause, went at some length into the question, whether this court had the power to pronounce an act of the legislature unconstitutional. Were the question doubtful, the authorities he read might well be considered as settling it; but any reference to them, to support the position assumed was unnecessary in this court. It is a subject on which we never had a doubt, nor have any at this moment." III-DANS QUELS CAS UNE LOI PEUT-ELLE ETRE DÉCLARÉE INCONSTITUTIONNELLE? Aux termes de l'Acte de l'Amérique Britannique du Nord, 1867, il importe peu que le pouvoir de législater accordé à chacune des législatures ait été exercé ou non. Bien différente sous ce rapport des législatures des Etats de l'Union Américaine, leur juridiction respective est exclusive, et leur silence sur une matière de leur compétence ne justifie pas une législation émanant d'une autre source que celle indiquée par l'Acte Fédéral. Aux EtatsUnis, c'est un principe depuis longtemps établi que les Etats peuvent passer des lois de faillite en l'absence de telles lois de la part du Congrès; parce que la constitution américaine n'est pas exclusive sous ce rapport. Au Canada, au contraire, quand bien même l'Acte concernant la faillite 1869 serait abrogée, les législatures locales ne pourraient y suppléer en aucune manière pour leurs provinces respectives. C'est ce qui résulte évidemment des termes de la constitution. L'autorité exclusive du Parlement du Canada ou des législatures locales s'étend etc. † "As the plan" dit un jurisconsulte d'une haute autorité en parlant du système fédéral des Etats-Unis aimes only at a partial union or consolidation, the state governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty, which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United-States. This exclusive delegation, or rather this alienation of state sovereignty, whould only exist in three cases: where the constitution terms granted an express authority to the Union. The last clause but one in the eight section of the first article, provi in express Le Breton v. Morgan, 4 Martin N.S. 138. Voir sections 91 et 92 de l'Acte de l'Amérique du Nord, 1867, citées plus haut. Story, Com. on the Constitution of U. S. § 199. des expressly, that congress shall exercise exclusive legislation over the district to be appropriated as the seat of government. This answers to the first case. Story ajoute: "The correctness of these rules of interpretation has never been controverted, and they have been often recognized by the Supreme Court." Une règle d'une haute importance dans la décision des questions constitutionnelles veut que les tribunaux ne prononcent l'invalidité des lois que lorsqu'elle est claire et incontestable; et à cet égard la jurisprudence de nos voisins est encore notre guide. Brooks vs. Weyman, * by the Court: "We reserve to ourselves the authority to declare null any legislative act which shall be repugnant to the constitution; but it must be manifestly so, not susceptible of doubt." Johnson vs. Duncan, † Derbigny J. "This Court has already had occasion to express their opinion in the case of the Syndics of Edward Brooks vs. Weyman; but they have also there expressed their sense of the circumspection with which such a right onght to be exercised. It is only in cases where the incompatibility of the law with the constitution is evident that courts will go to the length of declaring null an act which emanates from legislative authority." Nicholson vs. Thompson Martin J. "The Judges of this Court have always considered themselves as the guardians of the constitutional rights of the people, and as such autorized to pronounce on the constitutionality of the acts of the two other departments of government; but we cannot say, that any act of theirs is unconstitutional unless it be manifestly so, and the question is not susceptible of doubt. Syndics of Brooks v. Weyman, 3 Mart. 12. In the case of Johnson v. Duncan et al., Syndics, Id. 553, we held that it is only in case where the incompatibility of the Law with the constitution is evident, that courts will go the length of declaring null an act which emanates from legislative authority. In Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87, Chief Justice Marshall, says; "the question whether a law be void for its repugnancy to the "constitution, is at all times, a question of much delicacy, which "ought seldom if ever to be decided in the affirmative in a "doubtful case. * 1 Martin, N. S., 381 (1813.) 2 Martin N. S. 654 (1815). 5 Robinson, 404 (1843). |