Presentation de la conference Wainwright 2006.

• Author: Kasirer, Nicholas
• Position: Quebec

In 1973, in the Maxwell Cohen Moot Court Room, McGill University inaugurated the Wainwright Lecture Series to honour the late Arnold Wainwright, Q.C., generous friend and valued colleague of the Faculty of Law. As the first in a series of distinguished papers presented over the years, Justice Albert Mayrand's Wainwright Lecture on the topic of the "inviolabilite de la personne humaine" was an auspicious beginning to what has become a grand McGill tradition. Later expanded to book form, it would have a decisive influence on the emergence of a coherent law of persons for Quebec civil law. (1) Subsequent lectures were very often published in the McGill Law Journal by professors of law from Quebec, (2) elsewhere in Canada (3) and Europe, (4) and by learned practitioners and members of the judiciary. (5) The Wainwright Lectures are an important part of the intellectual life of this faculty and have contributed substantially to the flourishing civil law tradition in Quebec. (6) Many of the recent Wainwright Lectures have been convened by Madeleine Cantin Cumyn during her many years of service as a Wainwright Trustee in the Faculty of Law. This year, most fittingly, Professor Cantin Cumyn herself joins this special group with the 2006 Wainwright Lecture on her chosen topic of "Le pouvoir juridique". It bears noting that what follows in these pages is also her inaugural address as Wainwright Professor of Civil Law.

First, a word or two about Arnold Wainwright, B.A. 1899 (honours in Mental and Moral Philosophy), B.C.L. 1902 (Elizabeth Torrance Gold Medal, Macdonald Travelling Scholarship), LL.D. 1963. A prominent practitioner with an abiding interest in legal scholarship, Mr. Wainwright taught Evidence and Persons for many years at McGill and followed the path of the civil law at the faculty with genuine passion. In 1958, thanks to the good offices of Professor Jean-Gabriel Castel, he purchased the 1,200-volume collection of French legal history from the estate of Francois Olivier-Martin, France's premier legal historian, and presented it to the university as a girl. The collection reflected Oliver-Martin's special taste for old French law and thus made for a particularly congenial addition to the civil law holdings of a library in Quebec where, in addition to its relevance as a matter of legal history, the ancien droit played a foundational role among the sources of the law.(7) The Nahum Gelber Law Library presently houses the Wainwright Collection, aptly described to me recently by a visiting Parisian law professor as "un des grands tresors du patrimoine national francais hors de l'Hexagone, au meme titre que les impressionistes au Met."

Maitre Wainwright est decede en 1967. Dans son testament, il nomme la Faculte son legataire universel residuaire. Il cree ainsi ce que l'on designe depuis, assez peu juridiquement par ailleurs, comme le Wainwright Trust pour l'enseignement et de la recherche en droit civil a la Faculte de droit de l'Universite McGill (8). S'il n'est pas une fiducie au sens strict du terme (comme nous l'enseignerait ma collegue Madeleine Cantin Cumyn), le Fonds Wainwright est une source precieuse d'appui a l'avancement du droit civil d'ici.

L'apport de ce fonds a l'essor du droit civil a la Faculte est en effet tres remarquable. Nous avons, outre les conferences Wainwright, le bibliothecaire Wainwright, Daniel Boyer, qui fait du developpement de la collection des ouvrages de droit civil une cause personnelle. Le fonds amene aussi des Wainwright Junior Fellows a la Faculte, qui, tres souvent, y vivent une premiere experience de recherche ou d'enseignement avant d'amorcer des carrieres de professeurs a temps plein. C'est le cas, par exemple, de la professeure Bartha Knoppers de...