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In many civil law countries (e.g.: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Brazil) a contravention is a lesser offense, similar to an infraction or civil penalty in common law countries.
A contravention in French criminal law is a minor infraction, as opposed to a délit which is more serious, or a crime which is the most serious. Any infraction of a law or regulation enforced by the agents of the State executive, that is not punishable by more than a €3000 fine is considered a contravention. The fine may also be accompanied by an additional sentence (peine complémentaire).
Contraventions and their penalties are determined by the executive organs of the French State, unlike délits and crimes which are determined by the legislative organs (Parliament Senate), as per Article 34 of the French Constitution of 1958.
The executive organs include:
As previously stated the maximum fine for an individual is €3000, and the maximum for a corporation or collectivity is €45,000.
The additional penalties are defined in the Article 131-10 of the Penal Code. They include:
The penalties are determined by the legislative organs: Assemblée Nationale and Sénat, or the government in the cases defined in article 49-3 of the Constitution (attribution of certain legislative rights to the government, in particular cases). There are 5 classes of contraventions, each having a progressively higher maximum fine.
| Classification of the contraventions | Seriousness of the offense. |
|---|---|
| 1st class | Non public slander and insult |
| 2nd class | Involuntary attack on a person's physical integrity having caused no work incapacity (Incapacité temporaire de travail , ITT) |
| 3rd class | Threats of violence |
| 4th class | Light violence |
| 5th class | Willful violence having caused an incapacity to work shorter or equal to eight days. |
In Brazil, contravention is a sort of penal infraction — not only an administrative offense - which is considered to be less serious than a crime.
Since 1941, Brazilian Law has a dual system which separates penal infractions in two main different acts. They are the Código Penal (Brazilian Penal Code) — describing crimes in general — and the Lei de Contravenções Penais (Penal Contraventions Act) — describing the contraventions.
Contraventions are punished less severely than crimes in Brazilian Law. While crimes may be punished to reclusão (reclusion) or detenção (detention), the only kind of possible imprisonment for contraventions is prisão simples (simple prison), which is never served under closed conditions (only open and semi-closed conditions may be applied). Fines may also be imposed due to contravention sentencing.
In Brazilian Law System, one who is already convicted for a crime is not considered to be recidivist when committing a contravention for the first time, and vice versa.
A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law to describe an offense that resulted in the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods, to which additional punishments, including capital punishment, could be added; other crimes were called misdemeanors. Following conviction of a felony in a court of law, a person may be described as a felon or a convicted felon.
A misdemeanor is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences. Typically, misdemeanors are punished with prison time of no longer than one year, monetary fines, or community service.
Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions that are falsifiable, and can extend to concepts that are more abstract than reputation – like dignity and honour. In the English-speaking world, the law of defamation traditionally distinguishes between libel and slander. It is treated as a civil wrong, as a criminal offence, or both.
Nulla poena sine lege is a legal formula which, in its narrow interpretation, states that one can only be punished for doing something if a penalty for this behavior is fixed in criminal law. As some laws are unwritten and laws can be interpreted broadly, it does not necessarily mean that an action will not be punished simply because a specific rule against it is not codified.
In France, a cour d'assises, or Court of Assizes or Assize Court, is a criminal trial court with original and appellate limited jurisdiction to hear cases involving defendants accused of felonies, meaning crimes as defined in French law. It is the only French court that uses a jury trial.
California criminal law generally follows the law of the United States. However, there are both substantive and procedural differences between how the United States federal government and California prosecute alleged violations of criminal law. This article focuses exclusively on California criminal law.
The police tribunal is the traffic court and trial court which tries minor contraventions in the judicial system of Belgium. It is the lowest Belgian court with criminal jurisdiction. There is a police tribunal for each judicial arrondissement ("district"), except for Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde, where there are multiple police tribunals due to the area's sensitive linguistic situation. Most of them hear cases in multiple seats per arrondissement. As of 2018, there are 15 police tribunals in total, who hear cases in 38 seats. Further below, an overview is provided of all seats of the police tribunal per judicial arrondissement.
In traffic laws, a hit and run or a hit-and-run is the criminal act of causing a traffic collision and not stopping afterwards. It is considered a supplemental crime in most jurisdictions.
The Penal Code of 1810 was a code of criminal law created under Napoleon which replaced the Penal Code of 1791. Among other things, this code reinstated a life imprisonment punishment, as well as branding. These had been abolished in the French Penal Code of 1791. Issued on June 3, 1810, it stayed in use until March 1, 1994 when it was replaced by the Code pénal.
Criminal responsibility in French criminal law is the obligation to answer for infractions committed and to suffer the punishment provided by the legislation that governs the infraction in question.
A police court in France is a criminal court which judges all classes of minor offenses (contraventions ) committed by adults. More serious offenses are judged by a correctional court for délits, or by a cour d'assises for a serious crime.
In France, the correctional court is the court of first instance that has jurisdiction in criminal matters regarding offenses classified as délits committed by an adult. In 2013, French correctional courts rendered 576,859 judgments and pronounced 501,171 verdicts.
In France the jurisdictions of the ordre judiciaire, of the French court system are empowered to try either litigation between persons or criminal law cases. They may intervene:
TheCode pénal is the codification of French criminal law. It took effect March 1, 1994 and replaced the French Penal Code of 1810, which had until then been in effect. This in turn has become known as the "old penal code" in the rare decisions that still need to apply it.
French criminal law is "the set of legal rules that govern the State's response to offenses and offenders". It is one of the branches of the juridical system of the French Republic. The field of criminal law is defined as a sector of French law, and is a combination of public and private law, insofar as it punishes private behavior on behalf of society as a whole. Its function is to define, categorize, prevent, and punish criminal offenses committed by a person, whether a natural person or a legal person. In this sense it is of a punitive nature, as opposed to civil law in France, which settles disputes between individuals, or administrative law which deals with issues between individuals and government.
A criminal proceeding in French law is one carried out in the name of society against a person accused of a criminal offense by applying the French penal code. It is taken in the name of society, in that its goal is to stop disruption of public order, and not to abate personal damages done to a specific person, which is governed by French civil law.
The principle of legality in French criminal law holds that no one may be convicted of a criminal offense unless a previously published legal text sets out in clear and precise wording the constituent elements of the offense and the penalty which applies to it. (Latin:Nullum crimen, nulla pœna sine lege, in other words, "no crime, no penalty, without a law").
This glossary of French criminal law is a list of explanations or translations of contemporary and historical concepts of criminal law in France.
The principle of legality in criminal law was developed in the eighteenth century by the Italian criminal lawyer Cesare Beccaria and holds that no one can be convicted of a crime without a previously published legal text which clearly describes the crime. This principle is accepted and codified in modern democratic states as a basic requirement of the rule of law. It has been described as "one of the most 'widely held value-judgement[s] in the entire history of human thought ' ".
In French criminal law, a contravention is the least serious among three categories of offenses. It includes non-criminal offenses, such as parking tickets, trespassing, minor violence, or destruction of property. The penalty is a fine stipulated by regulation, sometimes augmented with a supplementary penalty such as a remedial driving workshop.
