Authorities

The Court’s management team includes a Chief judge, a Senior Associate Chief judge, and three Associate Chief Judges, who serve a non-renewable seven-year term. An Associate Chief Judge is assigned to head up each of the Court’s three divisions (i.e., the Civil Division, the Criminal and Penal Division, and the Youth Division). 

The Chief Judge appoints 10 Coordinating Judges and twelve Associate Coordinating Judges from among Court judges. These judges are primarily responsible for seeing to judicial activities in their local region or matters that fall under their responsibility. The term of office for each of these judges is three years and is renewable.

Judges in management positions carry out their managerial role with the greatest respect of judicial independence. They have no power to direct a judicial decision to be rendered or review a judicial decision that has already been rendered in a given case. Rather, one of their roles is to ensure that judges have optimal working conditions and sufficient human and material resources (e.g., judge positions, support staff, courtrooms, offices, security, and technology). In this regard, judges in management positions ensure that the needs of the Court and its judges are documented and conveyed to the responsible authorities, namely the Ministère de la Justice du Québec.

The administrative autonomy of a court is one of the elements insuring its institutional independence. Since 2002, the Court of Québec has been autonomously undertaking financial and administrative responsibilities as well as the management of an important portion of its resources and activities. The Office of the Chief Judge is made up about forty employees who share many tasks resulting therefrom.

The executive director of the Court of Québec manages this team according to the instructions and policies enacted by the Chief Judge.

The duties of the Office of the Chief Judge staff are many and varied. Among other things, it provides the necessary support to the six associate chief judges to allow them to carry out their many activities at the executive, professional and clerical levels. The members of this team also collaborate regularly with the coordinating judges and the associate coordinating judges. Administrative and computer process analysts are frequently called upon to supervise and process management information relevant to the monitoring of the Court's judicial activities.

In addition, the Research Department, made up of 15 legal specialists mainly located at the Québec City and Montréal courthouses, supports judges in the legal analysis of the cases before them. These legal specialists are also called upon to develop thematic files and to collaborate on research related to the judges’ training and development. The coordinator and assistant coordinator oversee the activities of this service. 

In the area of communications, the office staff regularly updates the Internet and Intranet sites and makes legal and administrative reference material available to judges, assistants and defendants.    

An information security service is also available to provide judges with a secure technological environment in a rapidly changing environment.    

With respect to the reimbursement of expenses, a team of administrative technicians is at work to deal with the various claims that judges incur during their travels or, more generally, in the performance of their duties.

The team members of the Office of the Chief Judge are reference persons for all judges of the Court of Quebec, the presiding justices of the peace and the administrative assistants. The Court is proud to count on a multidisciplinary team of talented collaborators who share their know-how for the benefit of its judges.