But this process is usually seven or more years after the case began. After the Baccalaureat or our equivalent of high school, one can choose university to study law. Two to four years later one takes a competitive examination. Based on the scores of the examination one can choose to enter the Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature or the school for judges. Here the individual is trained as a professional judge.
Judges are judges from the very beginning of their law career.
They are chosen from the top of their law classes by special examinations. They are trained for three years to be judges and tend to follow a particular career track starting in the juvenile court until they find the right spot for themselves. Judges may be sitting magistrates or standing magistrates. A sitting magistrate is what in the United States we typically see as a judge on the bench. A standing magistrate is a prosecutor, working for the government in the criminal jurisdiction.