Afin de faire état de la terminologie du droit privé québécois, le Centre Paul-André Crépeau de droit privé et comparé a lancé en 1981 le projet des Dictionnaires de droit privé et lexiques bilingues.

En exprimant le droit privé dans les langues anglaise et française, les Dictionnaires de droit privé / Private Law Dictionaries sont des outils de connaissance originaux qui tiennent compte du fait que le droit privé québécois évolue dans un cadre linguistique et juridique unique au monde. Ils constituent les seuls ouvrages de terminologie juridique pouvant prétendre refléter la spécificité bilingue et bijuridique de la culture juridique québécoise, en plus d’être un outil essentiel pour l’ensemble des juristes québécois, pour les traducteurs juridiques, pour les juristes de l’ensemble du Canada intéressés par le droit civil québécois et, enfin, pour les juristes œuvrant en droit comparé.

Cette page vous donne accès, dans leurs versions française et anglaise, aux dictionnaires suivants : le Dictionnaire de droit privé, 2ème (1991), Le Dictionnaire de droit privé — Les obligations (2003), Le dictionnaire de droit privé — Les biens (2012), Le Dictionnaire de droit privé — Les familles, 2èmeéd (2016). Un projet de Dictionnaire de droit privé — Successions est actuellement en cours, et sera progressivement ajouté à la base de données.

Afin de faciliter vos recherches, nous vous invitons à consulter la page de présentation des Dictionnaires, qui expose les principes ayant guidé la présentation des entrées et présente les différents éléments qui forment la structure des articles. La rubrique d’aide pourra également vous être utile afin de découvrir les diverses fonctionnalités du moteur de recherche.

Le Centre Paul-André Crépeau de droit privé et comparé tient à remercier le Ministère de la Justice du Canada et la Chambre des Notaires pour leur appui financier pour la conduite des projets lexicographiques ainsi que l’Association du Barreau Canadien qui contribua à la mise en ligne Dictionnaire de droit privé — Les familles, 2èmeéd (2016).

In 1981, the Paul-André Crépeau Centre of Private and Comparative Law launched its Private Law Dictionaries and Bilingual Lexicons in order to present the terminology of the Quebec private law.

By expressing the private law in the French and English languages, the Private Law Dictionaries/Dictionnaires de droit privé are original tools which take account of the unique linguistic and juridical landscape in which the Quebec private law evolves. These are the only publications of legal terminology which can claim to reflect the bilingual and bijuridical specificity of Quebec’s legal culture. They serve as an essential tool for jurists and translators in Québec, for those across Canada interested in the Québec civil law, as well as for those working in the field of comparative law.

This website gives access, in their French and English versions, to the following dictionaries : the Private Law Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1991), the Private Law Dicitonary–Obligations (2003), the Dictionary of Private Law–Property (2012), the Private Law Dictionary–Family, 2nd ed. (2016). The Private Law Dictionary-Successions is in progress, and will gradually be added to the database.

To facilitate your research, please consult the "Guide to the Use of the Dictionaries", which presents the guiding principles behind the entries and the different components of their structure. The Help Section may also be useful in understanding the search engine’s various functions.

The Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law would like to thank the Department of Justice of Canada and the Chambre des Notaires for their financial support of the dictionary projects, as well as The Canadian Bar Association, which will contribute to the online version of the Private Law Dictionary of the Family, 2nd ed. (2016).


Le projet des Dictionnaires en bref

Search the dictionaries/Accès aux dictionnaires:

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z 
AUTONOMY OF THE WILL (THEORY OF THE)
(Obl.) Theory according to which intention is considered to be the source of contractual obligations. “It is one thing to recognize that will has a role in contract [...] It is quite another thing to postulate will as an a priori and exclusive basis from which are deduced in rigorous fashion the consequences which it implies. Only the second attitude belongs to an adherence to the theory of the autonomy of the will” (Rouhette, in Contract Law Today, 38, p. 47).  Obs. 1º The genius of the theory of the autonomy of the will is that it explains the contractual obligation by reference to individual will. At the end of the nineteenth century, scholars applied the philosophical doctrine of the autonomy of the will to law on the basis of four concepts: the will creates the contract; the contract is the law of the parties; the contract must be interpreted in conformity with the intention of the parties; and the contract is necessarily fair since it was voluntarily undertaken. Therefore, a valid obligation which conforms to public order may be thought of as valid and just because it reflects a free expression of will. 2º The theory of the autonomy of the will was developed on the basis of principles predating the theory of obligations, notably freedom of contract, consensualism and the binding force of contract. At a technical level, each of these principles is subject to numerous restrictions in addition to those related to the requirements of public order. It is therefore important to remember that these principles are not, by their very nature, absolute. Some provisions are indeed so essential that they cannot be dismissed as simple exceptions limiting the will of the parties (e.g. arts. 1375, 1434 C.C.Q. and the Consumer Protection Act, R.S.Q. c. P-40.1). 3º Two main criticisms have been raised against the theory of the autonomy of the will. The first questions the very foundation of the theory by adopting a conception of contract based on the preeminence of law rather than intention. The second concerns contractual justice. While recognizing intention as the source of contractual obligations, this perspective calls into question the idea that the concurrence of free will inherently produces just outcomes. See also  binding force of contract, consensualism, consent1, contract1, formalism, freedom of contract. Fr. autonomie de la volonté (théorie de l').
entry:15181