Readings and Hearings in French Criminal Justice: Five Cases in the Tribunal Correctionnel

Abstract

In a recent issue of this Journal I examined in some detail the processing of a murder case in the French criminal justice system.1 Many anglophone lawyers will in any event know something of the players and procedures involved in the processing of serious criminal cases in the French system, such as the examining magistrate or investigating judge (juge d'instruction) and the jury court (cour d'assises) consisting of judges and jurors sitting and deliberating together. Less seems to be known by anglophone lawyers, however, about the way in which less serious criminal cases are dealt with in France. These are predominantly dealt with through a hearing in the tribunal correctionnel after an investigation by the judicial police. As part of my interest over the past decade in the French criminal justice system I have sat through many days of hearing in the tribunaux correctionnels, noting what was transpiring. To understand properly what happens at the hearing of a case in France it is necessary to read the dossier in which the investigation in the case is recorded. Thus, with permission of the prosecutors concerned, I read the dossiers of some of the cases I had sat through. What follows is an account of five of the cases I have so studied. The object of this exercise is to present to an anglophone readership an account of how run-of-the-mill cases are dealt with by the French criminal justice system.2 This may be useful to comparative lawyers seeking a better understanding of standard French procedures rather than of just the deluxe procedures used in more serious cases. This may also assist in providing a more substantial basis for considering what, if any, procedures from the French criminal justice system might beneficially be transplanted into anglophone or common law systems.3