Don't Judge a Post by its Title



                French courts are presided over by Judges called Magistrats. Magistrats are overly qualified professionals who have went through rigorous training. Today, all Magistrats graduate from the postgraduate School of Magistrature. A French Magistrat is not at all the same as a Magistrate in the English legal system. Only French citizens are considered for a position as a Magistrat because it is seen as a civil servant position. Procedures for the appointing or otherwise modifying a Magistrats position 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. Once appointed, judges serve for life and cannot be removed without proceedings conducted before the Council with due process.
                France has two judicial systems; the administrative and the judiciary. The administrative system deals with arguments between the government and individuals, and the judiciary system deals with civil and criminal cases. France does not use a jury system (abolished in 1941, right before Mersault was introduced to the court) but a mixed group made up of six judge’s assistants and three professional judges. Decisions are decided by a 2/3 majority. The court system is further divided into two sections of courts. Ordinary courts (ordre judiciaire), which handle criminal and civil litigation and administrative courts (ordre administratif), which supervise the government and handle complaints. 

Sources: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_France 
https://about-france.com/french-legal-system.htm

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2017 at 8:30 AM

    I wonder how the jury system would have influenced the way that Meursault's case ended up. I think that a lot of my sympathies were in the fact that his was misunderstood in the legal process. I think this is good contextual information, nice post.

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  2. Yamini YedetoreNovember 18, 2017 at 12:44 PM

    Nice post! I hadn't done any research on the exact details of the court system in Mersault's trial, but for sure a huge part of his final sentence was impacted by the judicial system. I agree with Anna's comment above, the fact that the jury didn't understand Merursault made my sympathize more with him. It would be interesting to see how placing his trial in a different country or time period would change the course of the outcome.

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