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In France, judges are considered civil servants exercising one of the sovereign powers of the state, and, accordingly, only French citizens are eligible for judgeship. France's independent judiciary 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 judicial, administrative, or audit court stream. Judicial appointments must be approved by a special panel, the High Council of the Judiciary, made up of other judges from the receiving court. Once appointed, judges serve for life and cannot be removed without specific disciplinary proceedings conducted before the Council with due process. The Ministry of Justice handles the administration of courts and the judiciary, including paying salaries or constructing new courthouses. The Ministry also funds and administers the prison system. Lastly, it receives and processes applications for presidential pardons and proposes legislation dealing with matters of civil or criminal justice. The Minister of Justice is also the head of public prosecution, though this is controversial since it is seen to represent a conflict of interest in cases such as political corruption against politicians. At the basic level, the courts can be seen as organized into: *ordinary courts (''フランス語:ordre judiciaire''), which handle criminal and civil litigation *administrative courts (''フランス語:ordre administratif''), which supervise the government and handle complaints The structure of the French judiciary is divided into three tiers: *Inferior courts of original and general jurisdiction *Intermediate appellate courts which hear cases on appeal from lower courts *Courts of last resort which hear appeals from lower appellate courts on the interpretation of law. There are exceptions to this scheme, as noted below. ==Glossary of Key Terms== Note: There exist significant problems with applying non-French terminology and concepts related to law and justice to the French justice system. For this reason, we shall define some of the words used in the rest of the article. *appel "appeal": for almost all courts in France (except very minor cases), it is possible to appeal the ruling, both for disagreement on how the court appreciated the facts or on disagreements with how the court interpreted the law. Another recourse is ''cassation''. *''Cassation'' The supreme courts (''Cour de Cassation'' and ''Conseil d'État'') act as ''cassation'' jurisdictions, which means that they have supreme jurisdiction in quashing the judgments of inferior courts if those courts misapplied law. Generally, ''cassation'' is based not on outright violations of law, but on diverging interpretations of law between the courts. ''Cassation'' is not based on the facts of the case. ''Cassation'' is always open as a final recourse. *chambre "division": subdivisions of a large court of general jurisdiction, which may be each specialized on a specific area of law. *Code "law code": collection of enacted statutory law or regulations relating to a single topic. Modern French law codes date back to the Napoleonic Code, though all codes have since been thoroughly revised or even rewritten. Some codes were written as such; others were codified by taking existing statutes and statutory instruments (regulations and orders) and re-organizing them into a single law code. *commissaire du gouvernement "Commissioner-in-Council": unaffiliated judicial officer who advise the government in cases heard by administrative courts or regional audit courts. Despite their title, they are not commissioned by the executive but are drawn from a court's active judges. They do not represent the government. Because of the confusing terminology, they were renamed rapporteur public (public report drafter). *''Contradictoire''. There is a requirement that all justice should render a decision after a ''débat contradictoire'', which means that all suspects, or people risking a penalty, should be able to ''contradict'' the allegations that they face. This implies, for instance, that they should be able to have an attorney to defend them, and that this attorney should have access to the prosecution files. Another implication is that trials ''in absentia'' (that is, without the presence of the suspect) had limited legal consequences, since it is a requirement of the ''débat contradictoire'' that the suspect should be able to speak for himself or herself. *contravention "misdemeanor, summary offence": lowest kind of crimes punishable by fines or, in the past, at most short jail sentences. They consist mostly of minor parking and traffic violations. *crime "major felony, major indictable offence": severest crime punishable by a prison sentence greater of 10 or more years; the vast majority of ''crimes'' committed are, in decreasing frequency, rape and homicide. *délit "minor felony, minor indictable offence": intermediate crimes punishable by prison sentences of fewer than 10 years; includes theft. Let us also note the ''délit de fuite'' — fleeing the scene of an accident with the knowledge that it had resulted in severe bodily harm to other parties, or fleeing from the police. *Inamovibilité "security of tenure": judges cannot be removed from office, except through specific disciplinary proceedings (conducted by the National Judicial Council, an independent tribunal), for infringements on their duties. They may be moved or promoted only with their consent. These protections are meant to ensure that they are independent from the executive power. *''Jurisprudence'' While French judges, in the civil law tradition, do not create law, and thus there is no precedent or case law properly said, they may interpret existing statute law, as well as generic principles derived from the French Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In particular, the decisions of the higher courts are of great importance and may establish long-lasting doctrine known as ''jurisprudence constante''. While there is no ''stare decisis'' rule forcing lower courts to decide according to precedent, they tend to do so in practice with respect to ''jurisprudence constante''. *magistrat "judicial officer": general term encompassing judges (''magistrats du siège'') and prosecutors (''parquet''); the ''magistrature'', or "judiciary", is a collective term for all judicial officers. ''Magistrats'' are government employees, but statutorily kept separate and independent from the other branches of government. ''Magistrats'' are expected to maintain a certain degree of distance (as is the case with all government employees); that is, they must refrain from actions and statements that could hinder their impartiality or make it appear that their impartiality is compromised, e.g., refrain from making public political statements. The ''Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature'', or "National Judicial Academy" in Bordeaux is responsible for educating judges and therefore only admits French nationals. *ordre administratif "administrative courts, administrative stream": courts of this order judge most cases against the government. *ordre judiciaire "judicial courts, judicial stream": courts of this order judge civil and criminal cases. *''Paritaire'' Regarding certain courts, commissions and other bodies making decisions with respect to two opposed groups of persons, this means that the body contains representatives from the two groups in equal proportion (parity). *parquet "Office of the Prosecutor": responsible for the prosecution of cases. It is headed by the ''procureur''. It requests enquiries to be made; during court hearings, it brings forward accusations against the suspect. In addition, it has a role of general monitoring of courts. In the case of an appellate or a cassation court, the ''parquet'' is called ''parquet général''. The name ''parquet'' means "wooden floor" in French; possible etymologies for the judicial use include the fact that the prosecutors speak from the floor of the courtroom (as opposed to the judges, who are in a higher elevation), and the possible meaning of "small park", alluding to a small enclosure in which attorneys stayed inside the courtroom. *président "presiding justice": chief judge of a division of a court; ''premier président'' or President of the Court refers to the Chief Justice. *procureur "public prosecutor": This occupation in the ''magistrature'' can be translated into prosecutor, but the functions of the ''procureur'' also include the general monitoring of the activity of the court in both criminal and civil cases (say, to see if judges apply the law in a consistent manner). The ''procureur'' in a court of appeal or higher court is a ''procureur général'' or an ''avocat général''. *''Publicité'' All civil, administrative and criminal justice, as well as all financial cases where individuals may be fined, end up with audiences open to the public. There are narrow exceptions to this requirement: cases involving national security secrets, as well as cases of rape and other sexual attacks, may be closed or partially closed to the public, respectively in order to protect the secret or in order not to add to the pain of the victim. Cases with defendants who are minors (or rather, defendants who were minors at the time of the crime) are not open to the public and the names of the defendants are not made public, so that they are not stigmatized for life. *siège "Bench": seat of justice and, by extension, the judges sitting on the panel trying the case. The ''magistrats du siège'', or professional judicial career judges, are said to be ''inamovible'', that is, they cannot be transferred without their consent. *''tribunal'': generally refers to a court of record of first instance having original jurisdiction and whose judgments are appealable. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Judiciary of France」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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