I disagree with my colleagues' interpretation. Any legislation that establishes an objective standard will provide somewhat curious results in the fringes. Stephen Hawking, one of the world's most brilliant men, did not have the right to vote until he was 18, like everyone else. However, one might say that he was able to do so from the age of 8. Any rule establishing a minimum threshold will in some marginal cases lead to unsatisfactory results.
If the teleological interpretation given is not that of being trained in civil law, there might be some problematic cases. A judge like Louise Arbour, who studied law at the Université de Montréal, and was a civil lawyer at heart and practised her whole life in Ontario, could not be a Supreme Court justice under section 6. The idea is not simply that the judge knows civil law. The provision is titled “Représentation du Québec”. Canada, like the United States, is one of the rare exceptions where the constitutional court, the Federal Court, does not fully and meaningfully consider the federal nature of the entity for which it must render decisions.
If we see the provision “Représentation du Québec” as targeting the objective of representation of one of the federated states in the federation, it is entirely logical to require that person to be somewhat attached to the federated state of Quebec. The presence in the Federal Court—