Talk:Court of Cassation (France)

message: There were two inacuracies : The Cour de cassation is not the only court of last resort (no court in France has universal juridiction), and the cours d'appel do not seat in each departement. I beefed up the article to tell about other court of last resort (now Cour de cassation might not be the best title). I believe that what I wrote is correct, but law is not my trade. If something is unclear because of my unorthodox english, just ask on this page, I will try to help. Didup 20:30 27 May 2003 (UTC)
I can't write it in English :
"La Cour de cassation juge la forme et non le fond" 
The Cour de cassation breaks ("casse" -> cassation) a decision it's not a second appeal. This court will judge if law was respected in the "Cour d'appel" most of the decisions are relative to the respect of procedure and will not "drastically change the way in which the Civil code or other statutes are interpreted". But a decision can also consider that the Code Civil (for instance) was misinterpreted (thus the first cour d'appel didn't respect the law), in that case other courts should apply the interpretation given by the Cour de cassation if they don't the risk to see their decisons broken is obviously very high.
Ericd 11:00, 19 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually most francophone countries that have civil law systems once based on French colonialism have a Cour de cassation (I think there is already one african country linked to this page like that). I don't think that is a big problem, just write another paragraph about the Belgian court differences. Alex756 02:00, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

text: I've just asked one.  Alex756 05:03, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
replies: text: His answer: "Hof van Cassatie". Alex756 22:36, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Untitled (2003) 

message: "The Prosecutor is a magistrate"
* I think English "magistrate" is not an appropriate translation for French "magistrat": if I understand well, magistrates in English-speaking countries are junior judges, whereas in France magistrats are full-time judges (excluding e.g. members of labour courts) as well as public prosecutors (in general they are graduates of the Ecole de la magistrature)
(in common language, in a wider sense, magistrat refers also to the President of the Republic and to mayors, i.e. people holding high public office). Magistrats du parquet are not granted by statute the same independence as magistrats du siège (judges).
* The members of the parquet of the Cour de cassation are called "prosecutors" in the article (and in the Ministère de la justice site), but this name is misleading as they don't "prosecute" in the criminal cassation procedure (they've got more or less the same role as commissaires du gouvernement of administrative courts; they're also heard in all civil cassation cases, whereas the ministère public seldom plays a role in civil procedure at first instance and appeal levels). See e.g. the Kress judgement of the ECHR for a comparison with their administrative and European counterparts. Apokrif 10:43, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: See http://groups.google.com/group/sci.lang.translation/msg/3feab18a5ea8bb13 Apokrif 17:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parquet 

message: 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. In the case of the Council of State, to understand the reasoning of judges, it is useful to read the speech of the Commissaire du Gouvernement (if it has been published): perhaps we should add it is the same, in the case of the Court of Cassation, for the report (by a judge of the panel) or the speech of the avocat général. Apokrif 17:00, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''The decisions of the court are extremely brief'' 

message: "Neither of these courts has the power of judicial review over statute law – essentially, laws voted by the Parliament (except in case of unconventionality).""
Here "Unconventionality" means (or is intended to mean) a breach of an international convention. Apokrif 16:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I see. In English the word "unconventional" has the primary meaning "odd" or "unusual", so the word "unconventionality" would not be used to refer to a violation of an international convention/treaty. I suppose an example would be that if a litigant argued that a provision of the Civil Code is inconsistent with the ECHR? Then what would happen if the Cour de cassation agreed with the litigant? Would the provision of the Civil Code be declared to be of no force or effect? Or would only that particular litigant benefit from the court's decision? --Mathew5000 23:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Any court can say, in a particular case, that an article of the Civil code, or a part of this article  (or any other law, with the exception of the Constitution and some other laws which have more or less the same value as the Constitution) should not be applied; so the court has to find relevant law somewhere else to decide on the case (as if this provitision didn't exist). A court can rule only in a particular case (see :fr:Arrêt de règlement), but if the Court of cassation (or the Council of state), or even the ECHR or the European court of justice, thinks the French law is invalid, it is very likely that other (lower) courts  will follow their advice (unless they want that all their judgments are cancelled by an upper court). But, contrary to what the Constitutional council does when it says that a law infringes the constitution (the law is not promulgated in this case), the invalid law still exists in theory. 22:21, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So essentially the courts will decline to apply a statututory provision found to violate an international convention, although the provision would still remain on the books. Is that right? And is that true of any treaty that binds France at international law (for example, let's say some environmental treaty), or only human rights conventions? --Mathew5000 23:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  AFAIK there is no difference related to the nature of the treaty, see article 55 of the Constitution: http://www.assemblee-nat.fr/english/8ab.asp (although it happens that a court says that the treaty is only a commitment between states, without having a direct effect on citizens, who in this case cannot refer to the treaty in court proceedings, and can only wait for a law enforcing the treaty.) I think French judgments have what is called "persuasive authority" in US law (in theory a court is not bound by what an other court said in an unrelated case). Apokrif 12:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The passage in the article currently reads "Neither of these courts has the power of judicial review over statute law – essentially, laws voted by the Parliament (except in case of unconventionality). Another body, the Constitutional Council, has that power..." As I said, the term "unconventionality" generally has a different meaning in English. So I propose the following change: "Neither of these courts has the power to strike down a statute passed by the French parliament. They will, however, refuse to apply any statutory provision they consider inconsistent with France's international treaty obligations. Another body has the power to invalidate laws that are inconsistent with the Constitution of France: the Constitutional Council. It is not a court and does not hear cases..." Is that a good way to word it?. --Mathew5000 23:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think your English is better than mine, so you should decide. I find the sentence "It is not a court and does not hear cases" ambiguous (it depends on what you mean by "court" and "case"). The question of whether the Constitutional Council is a juridiction (court) is disputed in France ( François Luchaire, « Le Conseil constitutionnel est-il une juridiction ? », Revue du droit public et de la science politique en France et à l'étranger (RDP), janvier-juin 1979 (volume 1), pp. 27-52). Apokrif 12:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unconventionality 

message: The svg image :File:Judiciary of France.svg in this article (and right) is a multilingual svg image, which at this writing is being properly displayed in English, but it may spontaneously flip one day into French due to a bug in MW software (). For details, please see this discussion. Mathglot (talk) 22:35, 12 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fragile svg image label language