A training day on the enforcement agents’ statements of facts in Quebec

The help of the French National school of Procedure (ENP)
This recycling course is based on and within the framework of the annual program of the permanent training service of the professional Order. This specific course on the statement of facts or ascertainments was done in close cooperation with the: "École Nationale de la Procédure (ENP)" of France. The main idea was to invite a real specialist of this new and modern bailiff's act, often used in France and in several countries of the new Europa, to wit: Jean Paul Spinelli one of the members of his board of directors and highly skilled professor to give a specific formation on the practical exercises in order to learn how to proceed in the drafting of those statements of facts done by the bailiffs either in France or in Quebec.
They came from has far has Rimouski by passing from the north west side of the judicial district of Abitibi-Témiscamingue. They were numerous to attend this masterly formation which was given on Saturday, October 30 th,2004 in one of the amphitheatres of the campus of the University of Montreal in Quebec. Me Spinelli, one of the main specialist on the matter after having given a short history on the origin of the "statement of facts" presented many facets connected to this proceeding extremely useful for the peoples and the justice system. It is in particular by the use of our senses, a practical sampling on the variety of these senses that we daily work with, to wit: the hearing, the touch, the taste, the sense of smell and finally the most useful one the vision, the latter case being the most general and frequent one so used. In fact, due to the wide and various examples and specificities well presented by our lecturer allowed all members present to clearly understand the wording used in each scenarios and well explained in each situation by our lecturer.

An useful act for the community
In France, it is not only useful for the people but also to the French magistrates in several courts which have to judge situations which are not always easy to understand and conclude. Without the contribution of the statement of facts, it would be often very much more difficult for them to regulate such situations with accuracy and celerity. We should noted that in Quebec, the function of bailiffs on this ground is appreciably the same one as in France. It is the article number 9 of the bailiff's law which entitle him to act his duty in regards with the statement of facts or ascertainments:
Statutes, Art. 9: "A bailiff may make purely material ascertainments, excluding any opinion on the factual or legal consequences that may result therefrom; such ascertainments have merely informative value."
Moreover, in the same statute of the bailiffs, article 8 precise: "The practice of the profession of bailiff consists of any act having the object of which is to serve written proceedings issuing out of any court, to execute judicial decisions that are executory and to perform any other duty assigned to a bailiff by law or by a court". Under the terms of the law or by court this last word thus implies that he can also act within the framework of a report called: "a statement of facts under a court order".
After having specified the differences that there is between the public places, places open to the public and the entirely private places, it is with several details that our French fellow-member put forward in particular the inherent difficulties to which the bailiff must be attentive. Me Spinelli specified that the bailiff must intervene every times that he is regularly and legally requested to act, except incompatibility or impossibility due to a contestable demand. Any outgoing beyond its mission would risk to involve the inadmissibility of the ascertainment and thus expose its author to a civil action and/or a professional liability. He mentioned a priori the importance for the bailiff to know and understand very well the mission for which he is assigned. He specified to always prevent that the applicant does not selects the facts or when the bailiff proceed "in absentia" (without the presence of the parties involved) and/or when the situation allows it and/or when he does not note contradictorily and/or with discharge or when the bailiff select only few points in its observations to be carried out. The bailiff must himself imperatively refuse to be part of a staging scene and must always present himself with a discovered face, without hiding his identity. However, for a question of pure effectiveness, it was clarified that in France in certain quite precise cases the bailiff can hide his identity before the observations, but he will have necessarily to reveal it after the ascertainments duly made so as to avoid contestation upon the confidential observations so done.

The choice of the means used to accomplish his mission
The bailiff should not use any means he said. Being an auxiliary of the Judge he must be of an essential honesty and an intrinsic dignity to its function has an "auxiliary of justice". Some bailiffs presents were even surprised to conceive that finally it is up to the bailiff which must in the latter choose these means by which it will supplement its entrusted mission and not only with the sole constituent or applicant.
Several and relevant questions were put out to our lecturer by an extremely interested assembly. All these questions lets suppose that our colleagues and fellow-members of Quebec will have enormously learned by the numerous and various situations so practice in the course of that specific formation. It is with real cases that really happened on the ground and introduced and well explained as well with great success by Me Spinelli that we could ascertain this "statement".
Let us mention finally the presence in this training of professor Hubert Reid former deanship of the Faculty of Law of the Laval University in Quebec which, in close cooperation with the Quebec bailiff professional Order is in preparation of a work which will specifically treat of the bailiff's statement of facts or ascertainments in Quebec.
We believe that the foundations are now relatively solid to permit this new way of keeping and producing relevant proofs and facts to become more and more effective in Quebec. Thus, it seems possible that this legal instrument can help not only the lawyers to tame it in matters known as litigious but also to amenable various situations permitting people to use it in multiple connections with the daily life and keep proof of all matter-of-fact that may disappeared with time. Now, the bailiff is entitled to keep and protect the proofs elements in writing through this bailiff's act called "statement of facts" or "ascertainments' report".