to be clear, though: because the ruling has to do with the quebec charter, the supreme court will be interpreting the situation from a civil law (that is, a franco-roman) perspective, and not the common law (that is, germanic law) that i was talking about.

i don't have a lot of patience for civil law (yuck.), and don't really want to get into this. i find the premise that law is void of interpretation to be too authoritarian for my tastes. that's one of the things i don't like much about quebec; i wish they'd come face-to-face with their franco-german origins and embrace the superiority of common law.

but, when the supreme court takes on these quebec-specific issues, and uses quebec-specific rules, they only apply within quebec. that is, any ruling or precedent that comes out of this will be in a civil law context and not be binding in the rest of the country.