On May 19, 2026, a bailiff serves Justice-Quebec.ca with a cease-and-desist letter from the Quebec Ministry of Justice. The stated ground: the platform’s name. But between the formal demand letters addressed to Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette a year earlier — left unanswered — and the speed of action deployed today over a domain name, an inverted chronology imposes itself.
On May 19, 2026, at 10:25 a.m., Étude Paquette & Associés, bailiffs, served Justice-Quebec.ca with a cease-and-desist letter transmitted by the Quebec Ministry of Justice, signed by Me Myriam Grondin, lawyer with the Direction du droit administratif et des affaires juridiques – Justice et Conseil exécutif.
The stated ground: the use of the expression « Justice-Québec » and of the domain name justice-quebec.ca.
In compliance with the cease-and-desist, Justice-Quebec.ca has already undertaken the steps to migrate to a new domain name. This article publicly documents the situation, the context, and the reasons why the platform considers it important to bring this file to the attention of its readers.
Immediate compliance — Migration already underway
Even before receiving the cease-and-desist, Justice-Quebec.ca had begun, several weeks earlier, a progressive migration of all of its content to a new platform, in response to the successive institutional pressures it has faced since March 2026.
The platform is now accelerating that migration in response to the Ministry’s demand. The transition involves: the transfer of more than 400 pages of content; the implementation of technical redirections (301) to preserve access for regular readers and protect informational continuity; the updating of communications with the partners, collaborators and community organizations associated with the platform; and informing current users — several of whom are in situations of vulnerability — so that no interruption occurs in their access to the legal-information resources they use daily.
The exact timeline of the migration will be determined by the technical complexity of the transfer and by the need to preserve the accessibility gains built for the benefit of litigants. The new domain name will be announced publicly at the official launch of the new site.
The platform’s position
This migration entails no recognition whatsoever of the legal validity of the Ministry’s claims. It reflects strictly the platform’s intention to respond in good faith to any institutional demand, while preserving the continuity of the mission it has given itself — supporting, free of charge, the citizens who navigate Quebec’s judicial system on their own.
What the cease-and-desist says
The Ministry maintains that the expression « Justice Québec » constitutes an official mark adopted by the Government of Quebec, published on December 14, 2005 in the Canadian trademarks register under application number 0916991, pursuant to subparagraph 9(1)(n)(iii) of the Trademarks Act.
Relying on section 11 of that Act, the Ministry demands that Justice-Quebec.ca: immediately cease using, employing, reproducing, communicating and disseminating the expressions « Justice-Quebec.ca » and « Justice-Québec », or any similar expression; and cease using the domain name justice-quebec.ca, on the ground that it is composed of the official mark held by the Government of Quebec.
In the event of failure to comply, the Ministry announces that it has « instruction d’entreprendre toute procédure judiciaire nécessaire » and that it will hold the recipient liable for any damage suffered, « sans autre avis ni délai ».
But is it really about that?
The visual appearance of Justice-Quebec.ca bears no resemblance to a government website. No official logo, no governmental colour palette, no ministerial banner. Government of Quebec websites follow a strict and recognizable visual identity — Justice-Quebec.ca is plainly distinct from it.
Every page of the site states clearly, in its footer as in its policies, that it is an independent citizen platform, not affiliated with the Government of Quebec, that provides no legal advice and that systematically directs citizens to official resources where relevant. The disclaimer is explicit: « Justice-Quebec.ca n’est pas affilié au ministère de la Justice ni à aucun organisme officiel. À ne pas confondre avec le site du gouvernement du Québec (justice.gouv.qc.ca). »
The platform has existed since the fall of 2025. It was registered as a sole proprietorship with the Quebec Enterprise Registrar on March 17, 2026 (NEQ 2270048103). Throughout all those months, no communication, no call, no email from the Ministry of Justice was ever received flagging an official-mark issue. The first intervention takes the form of a cease-and-desist served by bailiff — without any prior warning.
Other citizen websites have, in the past, carried comparable names without triggering any reaction from the Ministry. The expression « Justice Québec » is, moreover, widely used in everyday and journalistic language to refer to Quebec’s justice system.
Why now?
A chronology that deserves to be laid out
Even before the Ministry served its cease-and-desist of May 14, 2026, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Quebec, Mr. Simon Jolin-Barrette, had himself been formally called upon on several occasions by the founder of Justice-Quebec.ca in recent months, regarding serious allegations concerning the administrative functioning of a Quebec courthouse.
These formal demands — transmitted repeatedly to the Minister’s office, to the Bureau de la qualité des services, to the government’s parliamentary leader, as well as to the associate deputy minister — required in particular: the formal launch of an independent administrative investigation into allegations of systemic obstruction and serious failings within the judicial administration; an indication of the concrete measures taken to put an end to those failings; and the Ministry’s position on questions of access to court records over which the Canadian Judicial Council had, by letter dated May 2, 2025, confirmed the Ministry’s jurisdiction.
No response.
No response was ever received from the Minister’s office, from the Bureau de la qualité des services, or from any of the other official recipients of those demand letters, the most recent of which dates back more than a year.
Copies of the correspondence sent to the Ministry and of the demand letters transmitted to the Minister remain in the platform’s files. They are not being made public because of the sensitivity of certain information they contain relating to third parties and to distinct court files. They can, however, be filed in evidence before any competent court.
The contrast
This prolonged administrative silence — all the more notable in that it concerned formal demands about serious allegations within the judicial apparatus itself — contrasts sharply with the speed of intervention of the same Ministry when it came, on May 14, 2026, to serving a cease-and-desist about a domain name.
A context that deserves to be laid out
For several months, Justice-Quebec.ca has been publicly documenting, on the basis of public sources and verifiable court documents, certain aspects of the functioning of Quebec’s justice institutions: allegations of administrative obstruction about which the Ministry of Justice has been formally called upon multiple times without any public inquiry resulting; files under advisement before the Quebec Court of Appeal; an originating application filed in Superior Court (705-17-011918-255) against the Barreau du Québec, its Office of the Syndic and the Professional Liability Insurance Fund; and the related matter involving the firm Spunt & Carin and former lawyer Me David Chun, who resigned from the Bar on February 5, 2025, in the middle of a syndic’s investigation.
A succession of cease-and-desists and notices
The Ministry of Justice’s cease-and-desist is not the first legal step to reach the platform. On the contrary, it is part of a tight series of interventions targeting Justice-Quebec.ca since March 2026.
March 17, 2026 — Cease-and-desist from the Barreau du Québec. Signed by Me Sylvie Champagne, Secretary of the Order and Director of Legal Affairs, and served by bailiff. That letter demanded the removal of the Barreau’s logo and of an article about a collaboration that the Barreau itself had previously solicited, by email from Me Éliane Hogue dated November 26, 2025. Justice-Quebec.ca complied within the prescribed deadlines.
April 28, 2026 — Copyright notice from the firm Juriséo Avocats. The host Webador transmitted to Justice-Quebec.ca a formal copyright notice issued by Me Nicolas Archambault, partner at the firm Juriséo Avocats s.a. (Terrebonne), invoking the Copyright Act (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42). The notice concerned a photograph published in the article Trois avocats, zéro défense, part of the investigative series on the Julien / Spunt & Carin file. The platform complied and removed the photograph.
Cease-and-desists from Me Cynthia Ward — Spunt & Carin firm, first and second. A partner at the firm Spunt & Carin, Me Ward personally addressed to the platform’s founder a first cease-and-desist and a threat of a defamation lawsuit — a threat that, to this day, has never been acted upon. A second cease-and-desist was received this very week of May 2026, once again raising concerns about its scope and its use. That new letter, transmitted in connection with a file covered by the platform, stacks within a single document signed by the same lawyer the simultaneous defence of several distinct interests: her own person and reputation, a former colleague of the firm, the Barreau du Québec, the judicial system as a whole, and the firm Spunt & Carin of which she is herself a partner — all presented as transmitted on behalf of a client. This stacking of legal hats, at the initiative of a single lawyer in a single cease-and-desist, raises questions of proportionality in itself.
Related Spunt & Carin file — Cease-and-desists targeting a journalist. Me Jean-François Noiseux, of the firm CDNP avocats, retained and paid by the Professional Liability Insurance Fund of the Barreau du Québec (FARPBQ), transmitted cease-and-desists to the founder of Justice-Quebec.ca as well as to journalist Mr. Michel Harnois, who wished to conduct an interview about this file. The originating application 705-17-011918-255, filed in Superior Court, characterizes these interventions as an abuse of rights — the use of a legal procedure not for a legitimate purpose of defence, but to slow the public dissemination of information in the public interest.
May 14, 2026 — Cease-and-desist from the Quebec Ministry of Justice. The subject of this article.
Five distinct legal steps, targeting Justice-Quebec.ca directly or indirectly, within the space of a few months. All invoke, to varying degrees, intellectual property, copyright, or trademark.
Let us be clear, however: not one of these steps contests the truthfulness of the facts reported on the platform, nor the allegations documented there, nor the content of the published articles. Not one. All of them concern exclusively peripheral elements — a logo, a photograph, a domain name, a mark — never the substance.
What Justice-Quebec.ca is
Justice-Quebec.ca is an independent citizen platform that supports, free of charge, people who navigate Quebec’s judicial system on their own — particularly people in situations of vulnerability, neurodivergent people, people with disabilities, or those who cannot afford representation.
The platform provides no legal advice. It explains the law in plain language, directs people to the official resources of the Government of Quebec, and refers citizens to established community organizations when human support is needed.
Justice-Quebec.ca collaborates in particular with non-profit community organizations, support organizations for neurodivergent people and people with disabilities, lawyers, notaries, paralegals, a retired former judge, former police officers, social workers, experts in victimology and intimate partner violence, as well as frontline workers. Several of these collaborations are publicly identified on the platform’s Trust and References Page.
None of these collaborations is paid. The platform accepts no individual files and substitutes for no professional.
What the platform’s closure would mean for the people it supports
Justice-Quebec.ca receives, every week, requests from people in situations of great vulnerability. Neurodivergent people for whom the judicial system is inaccessible without plain-language explanation. People with disabilities who cannot travel or make themselves heard. Parents in litigation, tenants, dismissed workers, relatives of vulnerable people — litigants alone, helpless before institutions that seem opaque to them.
Some of these people write to us in states of great distress. When the situation required it, the platform directed those people without delay to the competent professional help resources — emergency services, helplines, community organizations — so that they could obtain appropriate support, which Justice-Quebec.ca neither claims to offer nor to replace.
A brutal interruption of access to the platform’s resources — without an organized transition, without technical redirections, without adequate communication with current users — would carry real and concrete consequences for vulnerable people who depend daily on the information, tools and resources published there.
The harm would be human.
It is precisely for that reason that the ongoing migration is being conducted rigorously, methodically, and with care to preserve the continuity of the informational services offered to the litigants who depend on the platform.
An open question
The question raised
Can an official mark adopted two decades ago — which, to the platform’s knowledge, has not been publicly invoked against comparable uses in all those years — today serve to challenge a citizen legal-information platform, precisely at the moment when that platform is publicly documenting institutional failings, at the moment when it receives, within a few months, five distinct legal interventions emanating from or gravitating around Quebec’s justice institutions, and even as the minister holding the portfolio has never responded, for more than a year, to the formal demand letters addressed to him about serious allegations concerning the functioning of his own apparatus?
The question is raised. Readers will draw their own conclusions.
What comes next
Justice-Quebec.ca pursues its mission. The migration to the new domain name is underway and will be completed within a reasonable timeline, given the technical complexity of the transfer and the need to preserve the continuity of the services offered to litigants.
The platform will defend its right to freedom of expression, its independence, and the mission it has given itself: helping citizens understand a system that, too often, escapes them.
The new site will be announced publicly at its official launch. Current readers and collaborators will be informed in due course. All content, files, investigations, practical guides and resources will remain accessible — under the new address.
The Quebec Ministry of Justice will be informed of the follow-up through the appropriate channels, where applicable.
We will keep readers informed of developments — including if judicial proceedings are filed against the platform.
Main sources
Supporting document for this article. Cease-and-desist letter from the Quebec Ministry of Justice, dated May 14, 2026 and served by bailiff on May 19, 2026. All of the cease-and-desists and notices mentioned in this article are accessible in the « Pièces au soutien des enquêtes » (Exhibits in support of the investigations) section of EnDroit.ca.
Help resources. If you or a loved one are going through a difficult time, you can contact the helpline 1 866 APPELLE (1 866 277-3553) at any time, available 24 hours a day, everywhere in Quebec.
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