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// French politics under the Fifth Republic After Charles de Gaulle had the constitution of the French Fifth Republic adopted in 1958, France was ruled by successive right-wing administrations until 1981. ...
| | | | | The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, which was introduced on October 5, 1958. ...
It has been suggested that Human rights in France be merged into this article or section. ...
The President of the French Republic (French: Président de la République française) colloquially referred to as President of France, is Frances elected Head of State and also the ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra and Grand Master of the Légion dhonneur. ...
H.E. (help· info), (born November 29, 1932 in Paris) is a French politician who is currently President of the French Republic. ...
The Prime Minister of France (Premier ministre de la France) is the functional head of the Cabinet of France. ...
Dominique Marie François René Galouzeau de Villepin (born 14 November 1953) simply known as Dominique de Villepin ( — (help· info), is a French diplomat and politician. ...
This page is a list of French prime ministers. ...
The Senate amphitheater in the Luxembourg Palace The Senate (in French :le Sénat) is the upper house of the Parliament of France. ...
The Palais Bourbon, front The French National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale) is one of the two houses of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic. ...
A republican guard giving directions to visitors at the front entrance of the Constitutional Council The Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel) was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. ...
Political parties in France lists political parties in France. ...
Charles de Gaulle, in his generals uniform Gaullism (from French Gaullisme) is a French political ideology based on the thought and action of Charles de Gaulle. ...
France is a representative democracy. ...
// Second Round First Round General Summary On May 1, Labour Day, the yearly demonstrations for workers rights were compounded by protests against Jean-Marie Le Pen. ...
The 2007 French presidential election will herald the first contest since Frances rejection of the European constitution in May 2005. ...
These are the results of the French legislative election of 2002 Category: ...
The French legislative election will take place in June 2007, a few weeks after the French presidential election. ...
France is named The Country of the Human Rights. In the Constitution and in the laws, the Human Rights are respected. ...
The European Union or EU is a supranational and intergovernmental union of 25 European states. ...
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A charter member of the United Nations, France holds one of the permanent seats in the Security Council and is a member of most of its specialized and related agencies. ...
In 1589, the four French Secretaries of State became specialized, with one of the secretaries responsible for foreign affairs. ...
This is a list of major political scandals in France: 1816 shipwreck of and search for French frigate Medusa off the west coast of Africa Dreyfus Affair, 1894 treason conviction of Alfred Dreyfus - exposed by writer Emile Zola on January 13, 1898 The Ben Barka affair, 1965 disappearance of the...
| The Cour de cassation is the main court of last resort in France. It has its seat in the Paris Hall of Justice. Romania has a similar court (Înalta Curte de Casaţie şi Justiţie), as do Belgium (Cour de cassation in French and Hof van Cassatie in Dutch), Senegal, and other francophone countries including countries with civil laws based on the French civil law system such as the case with Egypt. The composition, organization and authority may differ in these countries from those in France. The supreme court in some countries, provinces, and states, is the highest court in that jurisdiction and functions as a court of last resort whose rulings cannot be appealed. ...
The Paris Hall of Justice (Palais de Justice de Paris) is located in the Île de la Cité in central Paris, France. ...
The High Court of Cassation and Justice (Romanian: Înalta Curte de Casaţie şi Justiţie) is Romanias supreme Court of justice. ...
The Hof van Cassatie (Dutch) or Cour de Cassation (French) is the main court of last resort in Belgium. ...
Francophone means French-speaking. ...
Organization The court itself comprises the judges, the prosecution service and the administrative staff. In addition, there are attorneys admitted to practice at the bar of the Cour de cassation.
Judges and Chambers In total, the Court includes about 85 judges (conseillers) and about 40 assistant judges (conseillers référendaires). The are assigned to six different chambers (chambres): - First Civil Law Chamber (première chambre civile) (dealing with issues relating to professional organizations, individual rights, copyright and contracts)
- Second Civil Law Chamber (deuxième chambre civile) (divorce, malfeasance and civil procedure)
- Third Civil Law Chamber (troisième chambre civile)(property and urban affairs)
- Commercial, Economic and Financial Law Chamber (corporations, bankruptcy, commerce, banking and patents)
- Social Law Chamber (chambre sociale)(labor, worker compensation and social security)
- Criminal Law Chamber (chambre criminelle) (penal law)
Each chamber has a chief judge called the President. The entire court is headed by a chief judge called the First President. The First President, the highest judicial officer of France, has responsibilities relating to administering the courts and disciplining judges. The current First President is Guy Canivet. Guy Canivet in full judicial dress. ...
There is, in addition to the six chambers, a Mixed Chamber (chambre mixte). The Mixed Chamber includes the First President and also a number delegates from at least three different chambers whose responsibilities are covered by the case in question. Each participating chamber is represented by its President, its most senior judge and two other judges.
Finally, there is a Full Assembly of the Court (Assemblée plénière). It is made up of the First President and the President, senior judge and one other judge from each of the six chambers. The Full Assembly is the highest division of the Court.
Prosecution service The parquet général is headed by the Chief Prosecutor (procureur général). The Prosecutor is a magistrate, but does not actually try cases (his role is to give legal advice to the Court, in a similar manner to the Commissioner of the Government of the Conseil d'État). He brings cases to the Court "in the name of the law." He may also bring cases before the Court of Justice of the Republic (Cour de justice de la République), which tries government officials for crimes committed while in office. The Chief Prosecutor is aided by the First Prosecutor (premier avocat général) and about 22 Prosecutors (avocats généraux). The parquet is, in some countries, including France, the prosecution service. ...
Bar The attorneys (avocats), while not employees of the Court and not technically part of it, play an important role in the correct application of justice. A barrister (advocate in Scotland and the Channel Islands, barrister-at-law in Ireland and elsewhere) is a lawyer found in some Common law jurisdictions who principally, but not exclusively, represents litigants as their advocate before the courts of that jurisdiction. ...
With the exception of a few categories of litigation, it is compulsory to use an avocat when referring matters to the Cour de Cassation or the Conseil d'État. Attorneys admitted to pleading before those high courts are known as avocats au Conseil d'État et à la Cour de Cassation or avocats aux Conseils. Admission to this order (bar) is particularly difficult, with special classes and a hard exam. The roles of these specialized attorneys includes advising litigants on whether their pleas are admissible, particularly that cassation cases only review points of law and not points of fact. In France, the Conseil dÉtat (English: Council of State and sometimes Counsel of State) is an organ of the French national government. ...
Proceedings The main role of the Court is to infirm or confirm judgments of lower courts on points of law; as the highest court in France, it also has other duties.
Appeals Appeals (called pourvois en cassation) are taken from the Cour d'Appel (Court of Appeal), except for some really small claims where it is impossible to go to the Cour d'Appel. The Court of Cassation then has the sole power of confirming or overturning lower appeal court decisions – it is said to "quash" (casser) them, thus an overturning is called a "quashing" (cassation). It judges matters according to points of procedure ("Did the lower courts follow the correct procedure?") and law ("Did they interpret law correctly?"), not on points of fact (the French Courts of Appeal do judge on fact as well as law; basically they retry cases). Lower courts are also allowed to ask for the opinion of the Court early in the proceedings, on a point of law which is new and complex; in this case, the opinion will not be binding. Court of Appeals is the title of certain appellate courts in various jurisdictions. ...
The case is heard by a panel of three or five judges from the appropriate chamber. In civil cases, three judges are used unless the First President or the President of the chamber orders five judges to sit on the panel. In criminal cases, three judges are used; again, the First President or President of the chamber may demand the use of five judges. Additionally, any one of the three judges originally assigned to the panel may order an expansion of the panel to five judges. If the matter involves the responsibilities of multiple chambers, the President may order the Mixed Chamber, rather than a panel, to review the case.
Unlike the case law decisions of common law courts, the Cour de cassation can only confirm the earlier decision, (rejet du pourvoi, dismissal of the appeal) or annul it ("cassation"). Annulment may be on part of the decision only (cassation partielle). Sometimes, the Court may overturn a lower court decision and decide the case itself (cassation sans renvoi), if the facts as stated by the lower court allows it (e.g if with those facts, the court decides that no tort has been done, contrary to the finding of the lower court the case will not be remanded; if the Court decides, contrary to the lower court that a tort has been done, the case will be remanded, at least to decide the damages). Case law (precedential law) is the body of judge-made law and legal decisions that interprets prior case law, statutes and other legal authority -- including doctrinal writings by legal scholars such as the Corpus Juris Secundum, Halsburys Laws of England or the doctinal writings found in the Recueil Dalloz...
A court is an official, public forum which a sovereign establishes by lawful authority to adjudicate disputes, and to dispense civil, labour, administrative and criminal justice under the law. ...
When overturned, the case is remanded to one of the Cours d'Appel, usually not the one which decided it previously, and never with the same judges. The decision of the panel or Mixed Chamber is not binding, however; the Cour d'Appel, which may decide the case as it pleases (but the decision of the higher court has a persuasive value). The decision of the Court of Appeal may again be appealed to the Cour de cassation. In this case, the Full Assembly of the Court hears and decides the case; it may, again, confirm an earlier decision or quash it and remand the case to the Court of Appeal. In the latter case, the determination of the Full Assembly on points of law is binding; the actual facts, however, may be reviewed by the court retrying the case.
The decisions of the court are extremely brief, citing the facts of the case, the relevant codal or statutory texts and a statement of the decision; there is no ratio or reasoning that is stated in the judgment to guide in the legal interpretation of the decision as is common in most common law jursidictions. It is left to doctrinal writers to explain the import of these decisions. The court often drastically change the way in which the Civil code or other statutes are interpreted. There are legal reporters such as the Recueil Dalloz and treatises written by legal scholars where judgments are analyzed and explained in the context of prior decisions. Much of this information is available through on-line database services as well. This article concerns the common-law legal system, as contrasted with the civil law legal system; for other meanings of the term, within the field of law, see common law (disambiguation). ...
A civil code is a systematic compilation of laws designed to comprehensively deal with the core areas of private law. ...
A statute is a formal, written law of a country or state, written and enacted by its legislative authority, perhaps to then be ratified by the highest executive in the government, and finally published. ...
The main French legal publisher, Dalloz, has published commentary, cases and legislation in a series of bulletins referred to generally as Recueil Dalloz. ...
When no appeal is made and the government, while without an interest in the case, disagree with the interpretation of the law in the lower court, it may order the chief prosecutor (see below) to "appeal to the Court in the interest of law" (former un pourvoi dans l'intérêt de la loi). The chief prosecutor may do it by itself too. This may be done in both civil and criminal cases. The Court will then state the law. However, since the lower court judgement was satisfactory to all parties involved (as they chose not to appeal it), it will be enforced unchanged. Note that if the government is dissatisfied with the law as stated by the courts, it may ask the parliament to rewrite the law. No constitutional question is involved here.
Unlike common law jurisdictions there is no strict adherence to stare decisis in France, nor in most civil law countries. The precedents of the Cour de cassation are not binding to lower courts when they hear another case. Yet they are often followed. The doctrine that judges should follow such higher level cases is known as jurisprudence constante. Stare decisis (Latin: , Anglicisation: , to stand by things decided) (more fully, stare decisis et non quieta movere) is a Latin legal term, used in common law to express the notion that prior court decisions must be recognized as precedents, according to case law. ...
Civil law has at least three meanings. ...
The most serious criminal cases (felonies, French crimes) are tried by jury in the Cour d'assises (one in each Département). In the past, their decisions could not be appealed to a Court of Appels, and until January 1, 2001, could only be appealed to the Cour de cassation, which would review the case on questions of procedure and law only, and when overturning, which was uncommon except for capital cases, choose another Cour d'assises to rehear the case. An argument for this situation was that allowing appeals to professional judges after a ruling by a popular jury would in essence deny popular sovereignty. Since 2001, Cour d'assises decisions may be appealed on question of fact to the Cour d'assises of another Departement, which the Cour de cassation will choose, with an extended jury. The case will then be fully retried. Appeals to the Cour de cassation are still possible on procedural questions, jury-based Cours d'assises not being the fittest place to hear them. The French Cour dAssises (Assize Court) is the court charged to judge people accused of felonies (crimes as known by French law), and one of the only to be composed of a popular jury. ...
January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ...
2001: A Space Odyssey. ...
Other duties The Court publishes a yearly report on justice in France. The report includes a section on suggested changes of legislation concerning justice, including criminal procedure. Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated the criminal law. ...
The Court orders compensation to innocents who have been sent to jail or prison. Compensation has several different meanings as indicated below. ...
Some high level members of the court are de jure members of special ad hoc courts, the investigation commission of the High Court of Justice (Haute Cour de Justice), which may be convened to judge the President of the Republic for high treason, the Court of Justice of the Republic (Cour de Justice de la République), which may be convened to judge ministers or ex-ministers for crimes committed in the course of their official duties, and the Conseil supérieur de la magistrature, the disciplinary court of the judiciary. The High Court of Justice has never been convened in the Fifth Republic and the Court of Justice of the Republic only rarely. Look up De jure in Wiktionary, the free dictionary The terms de jure and de facto are used instead of in principle and in practice, respectively, when one is describing political situations. ...
The President of France, known officially as the President of the Republic (Président de la République in French), is Frances elected Head of State. ...
A minister or a secretary is a politician who heads a government ministry or department (e. ...
The Fifth Republic is the fifth and current republican constitution of France, which was introduced on October 5, 1958. ...
Other courts The Cour de cassation is not the only court of last resort in France. Cases against the state or local authorities, including all decisions from the executive branch, are heard by different courts (tribunaux administratifs) and the court of last resort in those cases is the Conseil d'État which also has other, non-judicial, duties. In cases where there appears to be a conflict between the judicial and the administrative orders of courts, whether the two want to act on a case (positive conflict) or refuse to act, thinking the other is competent (negative conflict), the Tribunal of Conflicts (Tribunal des Conflits), made of 4 members from each high court, and sometimes (usually only in the case of a tie vote) presided by the Minister of Justice, decides on the issue. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the executive is the branch of a government charged with implementing, or executing, the law. ...
In France, the Conseil dÉtat (English: Council of State and sometimes Counsel of State) is an organ of the French national government. ...
Neither of these courts has the power of judicial review over statute law – essentially, laws voted by the Parliament (exept in case of unconventionality). Another body, the Constitutional Council has that power; it is not a court and does not hear cases. Before the law is enacted, the President of the Republic, the president of either house of the parliament, or, more commonly, sixty members of parliament from the same house may ask for a review. Some laws, mostly pertaining to the organisation of government, and called loi organique comes before the conseil constitutionnel for review, without anyone asking. There is no review after a law has been enacted. In particular, there is no review of law enacted before the present constitution came in effect, in 1959. However, courts may take a restrictive view of the application of statutes. Judicial review is the power of a court to review a law or an official act of a government employee or agent for constitutionality or for the violation of basic principles of justice. ...
The Parlement of France is bicameral, and consists of the National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) and the Senate (Sénat). ...
A republican guard giving directions to visitors at the front entrance of the Constitutional Council The Constitutional Council (Conseil Constitutionnel) was established by the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958. ...
The President of France, known officially as the President of the Republic (Président de la République in French), is Frances elected Head of State. ...
1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Appeals against decisions of the French judiciary may be taken to the European Court of Human Rights. Occasionally the courts may also request the opinion of the European Court of Justice with respect to the laws of the European Union. European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg The European Court of Human Rights, often referred to informally as the Strasbourg Court, was created to systematise the hearing of human rights complaints from Council of Europe member states. ...
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is formally known as the Court of Justice of the European Communities, i. ...
See also The French Cour dAssises (Assize Court) is the court charged to judge people accused of felonies (crimes as known by French law), and one of the only to be composed of a popular jury. ...
// Glossary and basic concepts Note: There exist significant problems with applying non-French terminology and concepts related to law and justice to the French justice system. ...
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