The Court of Cassation is the supreme court for civil and criminal cases in France. It is one of the country's four apex courts, along with the Council of State, the Constitutional Council and the Jurisdictional Disputes Tribunal.
France's independent court system enjoys special statutory protection from the executive branch. Procedures for the appointment, promotion, and removal of judges vary depending on whether it is for the ordinary or the administrative stream. Judicial appointments in the judicial stream must be approved by a special panel, the High Council of the Judiciary. Once appointed, career judges serve for life and cannot be removed without specific disciplinary proceedings conducted before the council with due process.
The judicial system of Turkey is defined by Articles 138 to 160 of the Constitution of Turkey.
French law has a dual jurisdictional system comprising private law, also known as judicial law, and public law.
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.
The judicial system of Egypt is an independent branch of the Egyptian government which includes both secular and religious courts.
Quebec law is unique in Canada because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a juridical legal system under which civil matters are regulated by French-heritage civil law. Public law, criminal law and federal law operate according to Canadian common law.
The Court of Cassation of Belgium is the supreme court of the Belgian judiciary. The court is composed of thirty judges with life tenure who are nominated by the High Council of Justice of Belgium and appointed by the Belgian federal government. The court handles cases in the two main languages of Belgium, Dutch and French, and provides certain facilities for cases in German. The court is assisted in its work by a public prosecutor's office and a bar association, which both function separately from other structures. The duty of the public prosecutor's office is to provide advisory opinions to the court on how the law ought to be interpreted and applied. The attorneys of the court's bar association assist litigants in proceedings before the court; in certain cases, their assistance is mandatory.
In France prior to 2020, the Tribunal d'instance was a judicial lower court of record of first instance for general civil suits and included a criminal division, the Police Court, which heard cases of misdemeanors or summary offences (contraventions). Since it had original jurisdiction, the Court's rulings could be appealed to a French appellate court or Supreme Court. Prior to 1958, the court was known as a Justice of the Peace Court until the judicial restructuring of 1958.
The courts of appeal are the main appellate courts in the judicial system of Belgium, which hear appeals against judgements of the tribunals of first instance, the enterprise tribunals and the presidents of those tribunals in their judicial area. There are five courts of appeal for each of the five judicial areas, which are the largest geographical subdivisions of Belgium for judicial purposes. The division of the Belgian territory into the five judicial areas is laid down in article 156 of the Belgian Constitution. A judicial area covers multiple judicial arrondissements ("districts"), except for the judicial area of Mons. Each arrondissement has a tribunal of first instance. Further below, an overview is provided of the five courts of appeal and the judicial arrondissements their judicial area covers. It is important to note that the courts of appeal do not hear appeals against judgements of the labour tribunals; these are heard by the courts of labour.
The justice of the peace is the small claims court in the judicial system of Belgium, and stands at the bottom of the Belgian judicial hierarchy. There is a justice of the peace for each judicial canton, which is the smallest geographical subdivision of Belgium for judicial purposes. Most judicial cantons cover multiple municipalities, except in the case of larger towns and cities, which are often divided into multiple judicial cantons. A judicial canton has an average population of 50,000 to 60,000 people, but some have a population as low as 30,000 people or as high as 100,000 people. The justices of the peace only have jurisdiction over their own canton. As of 2017, there are 187 cantons with as many justices of the peace in Belgium, who hear cases in 229 seats.
The judiciary of Luxembourg comprises a number of courts.
The Tribunal judiciaire de Paris, located at the Judicial Campus of Paris in Batignolles, is the largest court in France by caseload. It replaced the capital's former Tribunal de grande instance and Tribunal d'instance under an amalgamation of jurisdictions that came into effect on January 1, 2020.
In French law, the ministère public or le parquet is the authority charged with defending the interests of society and of the application of law. It is primarily made up of magistrates, but is sometimes represented by other persons such as police officials. Its magistrates can be referred to as "standing" magistrates, as opposed to magistrats du siège. Its closest equivalent in some English-speaking countries is the director of public prosecutions and the attorney general in others.
In France, a cour d’appel of the ordre judiciaire (judiciary) is a juridiction de droit commun du second degré, a. It examines judgements, for example from the correctional tribunal or a tribunal de grande instance. When one of the parties is not satisfied with the verdict, it can appeal. While communications from jurisdictions of first instance are termed "judgements", or judgments, a court of appeal renders an arrêt (verdict), which may either uphold or annul the initial judgment. A verdict of the court of appeal may be further appealed en cassation. If the appeal is admissible at the cour de cassation, that court does not re-judge the facts of the matter a third time, but may investigate and verify whether the rules of law were properly applied by the lower courts.
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.
The Belgian Code of Criminal Procedure is a code of law in the country of Belgium, of which the different parts were formally adopted in November and December 1808. The code is currently still in force. The Code of Criminal Procedure governs the powers and duties of judicial police attributed to certain public and judicial officers, the manner in which to conduct criminal investigations and prosecutions, as well as the criminal jurisdiction of the courts and tribunals of the Belgian judiciary and the applicable rules of criminal procedure. As such, the Code of Criminal Procedure is one of the important codes of law in the Belgian legal system.
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.
