In practice, courts tend to rely solely on the written submissions of the parties, which summarize the various factual and legal arguments. The procedure of a crime is much more complicated than that of a misdemeanour. The Criminal Court administers all cases referred to it by the District Court of Appeal and hears only such cases. The criminal court is an institution specific to the French legal system. The jury, as one of its components, meets quarterly and the verdict of the criminal court is not appealed to the Court of Appeal. Once a final trial order has been issued, the accused must be transferred to the prison where the criminal court is located. In addition, each conviction must be upheld and supported by at least five of the nine jurors. [20] If the results of the vote are consistent with the conviction, the judge immediately votes on the verdict. The method of sentencing is based on the secret ballot, in which each person proposes a sanction, which must be imposed by a majority vote.
In addition, the approach of successive votes must be carried out and carried out until a sanction is confirmed. In the third round of voting, the harshest punishment was abolished one by one by the proposed candidates. [21] The application must contain legal information about the parties, a detailed description of the relevant facts, the legal arguments on which the applicant intends to rely, supporting documents and the appeal sought. In terms of judicial structure, the Juvenile Criminal Court has the same construction system as the Common Criminal Court, which is composed of 3 professional judges and 9 jurors. The Juvenile Criminal Court deals with crimes committed by minors between the ages of 16 and 18. [25] The purpose of establishing a juvenile court is to determine the specificity of juvenile delinquency. In 1945, the basic penal policy against crimes committed by minors was formulated and special juvenile judges or juvenile courts were established. Cases of minor offences relating to the first four stages of police offences will continue to be dealt with by the police courts, while cases concerning the fifth category of offences, misdemeanours and crimes committed by the police are to be dealt with under the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts. The system consists of several parts of juvenile judges, juvenile courts, courts of appeal and juvenile criminal courts. [24] The French criminal justice system, derived from Roman law, is typically shaped by the European continent. It is not only a feudal system in the Middle Ages, but also a representative of the civil justice system.
The France is attached to the judicial system, which gradually established itself after the French Revolution in the late 18th century. [1] From the beginning of the 19th century until today, Napoleon codified a number of important rules and established the common judicial system, the administrative judicial system, as well as the independent judicial system, which formed a unified modern judicial system. Below is an insightful theoretical article by a French judge that is now relevant due to the procedure in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case. What remains to be discussed, however, is the presumption of innocence enjoyed by defendants in the United States, as well as the burden on prosecutors to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” before a jury of laymen who are theoretically unaffected by the public prior to trial or other facts about the case that are not presented according to the rules of evidence in the trial itself. Part of the inevitable consequences of the “DSK case” is that it impressively highlighted the existence of a deep cultural gap between American and French legal approaches. Because these two legal systems are based on different conceptions of truth, they use different methods to arrive at a judgment that should be considered fair in their respective societies. In the American system, the premise is that the truth is brought to light through a struggle in which opposing positions (defense and accusation) are thrown into the roles of opposing protagonists. In France, on the other hand, the truth is best seen as the result of an investigation. The French system (classified as “inquisitorial”) is based on the principle that allegations reveal a clear truth only on the basis of a thorough examination of official documents such as hearings, transcripts, analyses and expert opinions, allowing state authorities to construct a plausible scenario that will convince judges. The process is linear, continuous – and time-consuming, as every conceivable hypothesis must be dismissed or confirmed, and the process may even require the opening of new investigations. Ultimately, the French legal truth must be established on the basis of a quasi-Aristotelian “unity of meaning” resulting from the investigations. In contrast, the American system (categorized as “adversarial”) arrives at “the truth” through the meticulously well-prepared drama of a public trial.
The judicial authorities themselves should not investigate the validity of the facts: their task should be to transparently monitor a confrontation that allows a jury to determine the winner. In the French philosophy of justice, truth is the result of an inference based on expert analysis of evidence; In contrast, the American system relies on the credibility that ordinary citizens place on witnesses. It is a deadly and serious form of theatre in which the act of judging does not require expertise. It is completely different from the French emphasis on analyzing documentary evidence in terms of justifying a logical scenario. In the United States, the credibility of witnesses and the personal intuition of the jury are the driving forces of justice. In France, logic and reasoning provide the necessary authority. [For legitimacy] the American system needs citizens; the French need specialists. A common point of the two systems is the objective of reconstructing past events. But they do it by different means. Français Investigations requires patient and intellectual efforts to piece together parts of the past; The adversarial system transforms the events surrounding the crime into its own event and order.
Theoretically, “real facts” are subordinated to the struggle in the courtroom that leads to a “truth” that emerges from a selection imposed on “facts.” (The word “trial” actually comes from the French word “triage,” which means that different elements are sorted to make a selection.) In adversarial proceedings, the question of “truth” becomes a question of due process when each party puts forward its arguments. This vision of the American way, which the French philosopher Michel Foucault pushed to the extreme, is explained as follows: “The goal is not to determine who is telling the truth, but to ensure the victory of the most powerful and therefore the most `just` party.” His analysis implies that “reaching the truth” is an idea that has only relative value in American culture, where the real goal is to ensure that the party that has proven itself the most powerful and persuasive in this ritualized struggle ends up being the one that is right. In an American trial, the true “facts of the case” must be overshadowed by blinding evidence or an extremely obvious argument that works like a knockout punch in a boxing match. For this reason, the evidence and testimony presented in court is called “evidence” – as “obvious” to a jury`s beliefs. This approach also explains why so many studies in the United States are not finally completed. The justification of a verdict or verdict is never and has never been a central part of the American process. (Under old common law practice, the conclusions drawn after the trial – the verdict – usually simply pointed to the winner, without giving much detail about how the court arrived at the “truth.”) This approach also explains why so many U.S. criminal cases are resolved through negotiation. This characteristic of the American system shocks many French people, who see it as a negation of moral truth, which should be inherent in determining the facts of a case and clarifying the truth. Indeed, the French “judgment” is supposed to emerge from a trial that reveals the truth, while the American “trial” aims to obtain justice through a fair struggle.
These different notions of truth also explain many subtle differences in the two systems. When a trial is conceived as a struggle or a showdown, allegations become a challenge for the defense, which must deal with the prosecution. This dynamic applies to the DSK case: for an American lawyer, the most important prerequisite is strategy (as in combat), while a French investigation is conducted by judges appreciated for their ability to think and work methodically. The American procedure emphasizes the principle of contradiction; The Frenchman stresses the need to maintain a “level playing field”. This procedural approach is intended to limit any unfair advantage to the State; The other is to ensure that there is fair competition between two opposing parties. In the American system, advertising is inextricably linked to the process, while in French, system privacy is the buzzword.
