Court of Appeal for Quebec

The Court of Appeal of Quebec (frequently referred to as Quebec Court of Appeal or QCA) (in French: la Cour d'appel du Québec) is the highest judicial court in Quebec, Canada. It hears cases in Quebec City and Montreal.

The Court was created on May 30, 1849, as the Court of Queen's Bench (Cour du Banc de la Reine in French). The Court had jurisdiction to try criminal cases until 1920, when it was transferred to the Superior Court. In 1974 it was officially renamed the Quebec Court of Appeal.[1]

Under the Code of Civil Procedure of Quebec and the Criminal Code, someone wishing to appeal a decision of the Superior Court of Quebec generally has 30 days to file an appeal with the Court of Appeal. Civil cases usually must have at least $50,000 in dispute to be heard. The Court of Appeal will overrule a lower court decision if it is "incorrect" on a question of law or "patently unreasonable" on an important factual finding. The Court of Appeal almost never hears witnesses, and lawyers' oral and written submissions are kept to strict maximum lengths. A normal case will take several months from filing of an appeal to a decision by the Court of Appeal, but the Court may hear a case within hours or days in an emergency.

Appeals of Court of Appeal decisions are heard before the Supreme Court of Canada, which is located in the federal capital of Ottawa, Ontario, but only if leave to appeal is granted either by the Supreme Court of Canada or by the Court of Appeal.

The ability of the Supreme Court of Canada, which has six of its nine justices from common law provinces and only three from the civil law province of Quebec, to overrule the Court of Appeal of Quebec has occasionally been raised as a political issue by Quebec nationalists, who worry that it erodes Quebec's distinctive legal culture. In practice, issues of civil law are heard at the Supreme Court by its three Quebec members plus two of its common law members.

...
Wikipedia