Civil law jurisdictions treat post-mortem rights as an extension of human dignity and inherent human rights. Protected personality rights after death dictate how a person's image, name, reputation, and physical body are legally guarded after they pass away. While a person’s standard legal status technically ends at death, legal systems around the world create specific mechanisms to prevent the posthumous exploitation, desecration, or commercial misappropriation of their identity.
The Civil Code of Québec (CCQ) serves as the foundational text for post-mortem protections in Quebec, explicitly establishing a dignity-based framework that protects a person's body and memory after death. Unlike the property-based approach found in Anglo-American common law provinces, Quebec law roots its protections in inalienable personality rights and human dignity.
Because personality rights are codified as "inalienable," a deceased body in Quebec cannot be treated as a commercial item or piece of standard property, to be sold, taken away or transferred to another person at cost. This dignity principle means that commercializing or exploiting a corpse, or parts of it, without prior consent violates public order. The Civil Code of Québec explicitly strips the human body and its components of any commercial value to protect fundamental human dignity.
The law explicitly dictates that "the alienation by a person of a part or product of his body shall be gratuitous. The requirement to be gratuitous means body parts can only be donated freely; they cannot be bartered, sold, or exchanged for financial gain.