Abstract
The aim of this article is to explore how criminal justice agency personnel in France respond to homicide. The French system remains, despite shifts towards adversarial elements and recurring attacks on the pivotal role of the eponymous Juge d'instruction, one of Europe's inquisitorial judicial systems, and its structure of judicial supervision of police enquiries and epistemological ethos of truth seeking has periodically been advocated to improve the probity of cases in countries like England with adversarial systems pitting partisan cases supported by discrete pieces of evidence. This article explores how the supervisory system works in practice, the methods and thought processes of the French investigators in all their forms, and the societal ethos within which they operate.
Highlights
The aim of this article is to explore how criminal justice agency personnel in France respond to homicide
The French system remains, despite shifts towards adversarial elements and recurring attacks on the pivotal role of the eponymous Juge d’instruction, one of Europe’s inquisitorial judicial systems, and its structure of judicial supervision of police enquiries and epistemological ethos of truth seeking has periodically been advocated to improve the probity of cases in countries like England with adversarial systems pitting partisan cases supported by discrete pieces of evidence
Its structure of judicial supervision of police enquiries and epistemological ethos of truth seeking has periodically been advocated to improve the probity of cases in countries like England and Wales with adversarial systems pitting partisan cases supported by discrete pieces of evidence
Summary
The aim of this article is to explore how criminal justice agency personnel in France respond to homicide. The French system remains, despite shifts towards adversarial elements and recurring attacks on the pivotal role of the eponymous Juge d’instruction, one of Europe’s inquisitorial judicial systems, and its structure of judicial supervision of police enquiries and epistemological ethos of truth seeking has periodically been advocated to improve the probity of cases in countries like England with adversarial systems pitting partisan cases supported by discrete pieces of evidence. Its structure of judicial supervision of police enquiries and epistemological ethos of truth seeking has periodically been advocated to improve the probity of cases in countries like England and Wales with adversarial systems pitting partisan cases supported by discrete pieces of evidence This article explores both how the inquisitorial legal system frames police procedure and how French culture shapes police practice and how the two combined affect the nature of murder investigation in France. The conclusion will discuss the inevitable contradictions between the inquisitorial ideal of the system, the ‘humanity’ of the detectives’ world view and the actuality observed
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