Reception statute

[1] In Commentaries on the Laws of England, Sir William Blackstone described the process by which English common law followed English colonization: Plantations or colonies, in distant countries, are either such where the lands are claimed by right of occupancy only, by finding them desert and uncultivated, and peopling them from the mother-country; or where, when already cultivated, they have been either gained by conquest, or ceded to us by treaties.

In other cases, the new legislature preferred to state redundantly but safely that common law had been received during the colonial period.

English law had already been received in all the various Canadian provinces and territories by legislation and judicial decisions over the previous two centuries.

In the four Atlantic provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador), the reception of English law was automatic, under the principle set out by Blackstone relating to settled colonies.

However, the long history of control by the Hudson's Bay Company caused some uncertainty as to the date of reception.

The Province of Manitoba set that date for the reception of English law for matters coming within provincial jurisdiction.

The federal Parliament eventually enacted a provision adopting that date for all matters in the North-West Territories.

[6] The same provision is the basis for the reception date of English law in the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut.

British Columbia was considered to be a settled colony and so received English law automatically, under the principle set out by Blackstone.

As a ceded or leased territory with its own set of laws, the Great Qing Legal Code remained in force for the local Chinese population.

The courts still refer to the Qing Code on the inheritance rights of surviving concubines married before 1971 and that of their children.

[15] After the 1776 American Revolution, one of the first legislative acts undertaken by each of the newly independent states was to adopt a "reception statute" that gave legal effect to the existing body of English common law to the extent that the legislation or the constitution had not explicitly rejected English law.

[17] Significant elements of English common law prior to 1776 still remain in effect in many jurisdictions in the United States because they have never been rejected by American courts or legislatures.

Nathan Dane, the primary author of the Northwest Ordinance, viewed that provision as a default mechanism if federal or territorial statutes were silent about a particular matter.

For example, the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted the English common law upon becoming independent but before England abolished trial by combat.