Talk:Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms

Requested move 13 July 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Per consensus. (non-admin closure) – MrAussieGuy (Talk) 06:55, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

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Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms → Charter of human rights and freedoms (Quebec) – Name of the legislaiton

• https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/C-12

"Quebec" is not in the actual name of the law, but it currently gets italicised, which is undesirable. Landpin (talk) 13:39, 13 July 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. – MrAussieGuy (Talk) 15:06, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:NATDIS. To stop Quebec from getting italicised, you can make the following edit to the lede:

  −

  {{italic title}}

  +

  {{italic title|string=Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms}}

  Arnav Bhate (talk • contribs) 14:22, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose. It is almost universally capitalized and is frequently called this in sources.[1][2][3][4][5] Official and common names of laws are proper nouns and are usually capitalized (Charter of the French Language, Parents' Bill of Rights, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, bill of rights the general concept vs. the specific examples at Bill of rights#List of bills of rights, etc.) As noted above, 'Quebec' here provides natural disambiguation and a technical solution is available for correcting the italics.--MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 14:36, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

  One of those is a disambiguation page for the Parents' Bill of Rights (Saskatchewan), Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (Quebec) would be better by that logic? Landpin (talk) 16:26, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

  I also addressed the issue of natural disambiguation ("WP:NATDIS") and evidence that this name is used in sources. I see no reason to switch to the disfavored parenthetical disambiguation. Perhaps we should have considered other options for the the Saskatchewan bill but the outcome there is not a compelling reason to change a title here that has been stable since creation over 20 years ago (except for the italics issue, which has a better solution) to one that goes against guidelines. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 17:10, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

  https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/charter-of-quebec-values-on-collision-course-with-constitution-1.1699637

  other sources just refer to it as "Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms" Landpin (talk) 17:46, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support move, but with a difference; remove "Quebec" entirely, so the new name will be "Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms".

Relying on the following:

• Wikipedia:Article_titles#Precision says that the article name should be precise in identifying the topic but no more: "unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that."
• Wikipedia:Article_titles#Disambiguation says that a disambiguation is only needed to distinguish the article from other articles with a similar name: "According to the precision criterion, only as much detail as is necessary to distinguish one topic from another should be used."
• Wikipedia:Article_titles#Consistency provides for similar name formatting for articles of similar topics: "To the extent that it is practical, titles should be consistent among articles covering similar topics."
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal says to use the legal system for the appropriate country. In Canada, one of the citation systems is COAL, put together by the association of law librarians. For citing statutes, COAL states: "Italicize the title. Use the official short title of the statute if provided (which, if provided, is generally at the beginning or end of a statute). If no short title is provided, use the full title." The short title here is given at the top of the page of the statute, on the Quebec statutes webpage: Charter of human rights and freedoms.

Putting these criteria together:

• "Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms" is a unique article name on Wikipedia, so the Precision criterion is satisfied;
• Because there is no other article with this name, the Disambiguation criterion indicates that there is no need for any disambiguation;
• Generally speaking, Wikipedia articles on statutes do not include the name of the jurisdiction unless that is part of the title of the statute, or is needed for disambiguation, so the Consistency criterion indicates that there is no need for a reference to Quebec in the article title. This is indicated specifically for statutes on human rights matters by the disambiguation page, Human Rights Act, which covers human rights acts from Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. There are 10 articles listed on that page, and only 1 of them includes the jurisdiction as a disambiguation in the article name: Human Rights Act (Nunavut). The reason it includes the jurisdiction is because the jurisdiction was needed to disambiguate the Nunavut article from the disambiguation article itself. None of the others include the jurisdiction as a disambiguation in the article name, because it was not needed. (Two do include the jurisdiction in the name because it is part of the name of the statute itself: "Canadian Human Rights Act" and "European Convention on Human Rights Act" from Ireland.)

Based on all that, I suggest the article should be re-named: Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 03:49, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

There needs to be some sort of disambiguation from Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which includes "Canadian" in its name. Landpin (talk) 07:50, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Disambiguation is used to ensure unique article titles on Wikipedia. “Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms” is a unique title, so no disambiguation is needed. The precision criterion applies: "unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but should be no more precise than that." Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 10:32, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

Agree. Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is a primary redirect to this article and has been since 2008, adding further support to your argument. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 15:35, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

I've changed my mind.

Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms would be a fine name. Landpin (talk) 13:55, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Just realised I didn’t address the capitalization issue. The Quebec government tends to use French capitalization rules even in English titles, which is why the short title on the statute page only capitalises “Charter”. However, I don’t think that unique approach to capitalization should apply on Wikipedia; should use the normal English capitalization rules. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 17:40, 14 July 2025 (UTC)

• Support Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms per Buzfuz. Potential confusion with the Canadian Charter is already dealt with in the hatnote.--Trystan (talk) 17:34, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
• Support Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms per Buzfuz. "Quebec" is neither part of the name nor necessary for disambiguation, since there is no other page with the same title. (I would have thought Wikipedia would have a page on the concept of a human rights bill, but there isn't one.) — Kawnhr (talk) 23:11, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  There is a page for Human Rights Act. Landpin (talk) 23:19, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Missed that. A link to it in the hatnote might also be appropriate. — Kawnhr (talk) 23:27, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  The Human Rights Act is just a list of human rights acts, with no other content. None of the acts listed on the page contains a hatnote to the page, so why would this one? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 23:39, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

I’ve added this article to the Human Rights Act page. Can update it if the article is moved as a result of this discussion. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 12:56, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Note: Quebec Wikipedians' notice board, WikiProject Canadian law, WikiProject Human rights, Canadian Wikipedians' notice board, and WikiProject Law have been notified of this discussion. – MrAussieGuy (Talk) 05:47, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.