Pierre-Basile Mignault Explained

Pierre-Basile Mignault
Office:Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
Predecessor:Louis Henry Davies
Successor:Lawrence Arthur Dumoulin Cannon
Nominator:Robert Borden
Term Start:October 25, 1918
Term End:September 30, 1929
Birth Date:30 September 1854
Birth Place:Worcester, Massachusetts, United States
Death Place:Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Nationality:Canadian
Honorific Prefix:The Honourable

Pierre-Basile Mignault (September 30, 1854  - October 15, 1945) was a Canadian lawyer and Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Pierre-Basile Mignault and Catherine O'Callaghan, he received a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from McGill University in 1878. He was called to the Quebec Bar in 1878. He then proceeded to practice law in Montreal.

His Droit civil canadien, a nine-volume work on Québec's civil law published during 1885–1916, and its relation to the French tradition, continues to be cited by the courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada.

As a judge on the Supreme Court of Canada during 1918–1929, Mignault also had a key role in countering a long-standing centralising tendency in Canadian private law, and in increasing the Court's sensitivity to the subtleties of Québec's legal tradition. Mignault saw Québec private law as “surtout fille de la France coutumière” (particularly the heir of French pre-revolutionary customary law), yet also a meeting place for a diversity of philosophical and cultural approaches.[1]

He is buried in Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery. Parc Mignault in Montreal is named in his honour.

Further reading

See also

Notes and References

  1. Book: Mignault, Pierre-Basile. Le Code Civil 1804-1904 : Livre du Centenaire. Le Code Civil au Canada. https://archive.org/details/LivreDuCentenaireDuCodeCivilT.21904/page/n154. Paris. Arthur Rousseau. 725. 2.