Court of arbitration (France)

See also: Court of arbitration, List of the jurisdictions of work

In France, the court of arbitration is the jurisdiction of first degree of the litigations born at the time of the execution or the rupture of the work contract between employers and paid Private law, like for the personnel of public services exerting under the conditions of Private law. The court of arbitration is as much qualified to take a decision on a litigation opposing two paid.

The litigation must relate to an individual problem, like the application of an collective agreement. The collective litigations, like the interpretation of a Collective agreement, concern the Court of Bankruptcy.

The multiple applicants in litigation with same other justiciable are not enough to characterize a collective litigation; there is then only juxtaposition of individual requests.

The court of arbitration constitutes an original institution; he is at the same time a jurisdiction:

of exception,
equal,
elective.

History

Appeared at the 11th century, the term industrial tribunal (" man of value, careful, of good conseil") applied then to the " defenders of the métier". If a conflict emerged between craftsmen, it was sliced by their pars: conciliation boards. The word industrial tribunal comes from valiant knight man or prode man , valiant knight and prode coming from the same Latin root prode derived from the Latin verb prodess : to be useful.

It is under the reign of Philippe-the-Beautiful that the first courts of arbitration were made up. In the year 1296, the council of the town of Paris created twenty-four conciliation boards and charged them with assisting the provost of the merchants and the aldermen in order to judge, in last spring, the disputes which could rise between the merchants and the manufacturers who attended the fairs and the markets established at that time; they went, moreover, to make the visit in the Masters and can be looked at, by-there, like the origin of the guards and sworn established subsequently in each community of arts and trades. During nearly two centuries, the town of Paris had only conciliation boards.

In several seaboard towns, in particular in Marseilles, there exists a court of arbitration whose origin appears extremely old. In fact conciliation boards fishermen judge the infringments as regards maritime fishing and the disagreements between sailors at the time of their profession of fishermen. This category of conciliation board would go up, believes one, at the time of the king king Rene, count de Provence (1462). Stops different of May 1758, November 1776, October 1778 and March 1786 regulated without much modifying it this institution which crossed without jolts the Revolution of 1789, to arrive such as it is until our jours.
Such was the organization of the conciliation boards towards XVe century.

It is the March 18th 1806 which a law creating a court of arbitration in Lyon east promulgated by Napoleon 1st then supplemented by a Décret the July 3rd of the same year. Courts supporting the conciliation between the manufacturers of Silk and the workmen Lyon be born existed already and were used as example. In Paris, a court of arbitration for metallurgical industries is created in 1845, then into 1847 of the courts of arbitration for fabrics, the chemicals and various industries.

The Republic alters the legislation of the conciliation boards by a law of May 27th 1848, which confers on the institution a strong element of its current form with the appearance of the paritarism (" employeurs" and " salariés" returning the decisions together). The law of 1848 had declared voters for the courts of arbitration all the owners, foremen, foremen, workmen and companions 21 years old and lying for at least six months in the district of the court of arbitration. She declared the same eligible ones, if they could read and write and if they had domiciled for at least one year in the district of the council.

She arranged in the class of the owners the foremen, the foremen and all those which paid license since more than one year and occupied one or more workmen. The presidency gave casting vote: but it lasted 3 months and was allotted alternatively to an owner and a workman, elected officials each one by their respective colleagues. The audiences of conciliation were to be held by two members: one owner, the other workman; four conciliation boards owners and four conciliation boards workmen were to compose the general office or of judgment.

The law specified that the number of the conciliation boards workmen would be always equal to that of the conciliation boards owners and laid out that each council would have at least 6 members and 26 at the maximum. It was proceeded to two elections: in the first, workmen and owners named a triple number of candidates of that to which they had right; in the second, which was final, the workmen chose, among the candidates owners, the conciliation boards owners, and the owners chose in their turn the conciliation boards workmen on the list of the working candidates.

Thus, during the XIXe century, the courts of arbitration anchor themselves in the legal and social landscape of France. Their number increases - that of Paris being created in 1844-1847 - to exceed the eighty in the middle of the century. The preliminary procedure of conciliation leads (at that time) in 90% of the cases and the judgments endeavor to develop jurisprudences on the basis of local practice. So the conciliation boards arouse the interest of the labor movement: in 1848, all the workmen become voters and eligible and, in 1880, the president and the vice-president are elected according to the system of the parity. A law of 1905 removes the casting vote of the president and transfers the calls from the bankruptcy courts to the civil courts. During their second century of existence, the courts of arbitration were extended to new professions, opened to the women (1907-1908) and the abroads; they became elements of the social democracy.

In 1907, a law is voted and sets up a true social jurisdiction, found qualified as regards individual dispute of work.

A reform implemented in 1979, the Law Putlog-hole, generalizes the institution: as well on the geographical level, as in the cover of the branches of activity; an ultimate legislative measure will intervene 3 years later to reduce these electoral mandates to 5 years.

There are 271 today.

Organization

The geographical location of the courts of arbitration is variable (according to the population, economic fabric, etc), but the law lays out that there must be at least one in the spring of each Court of Bankruptcy.

See also: List of the courts of arbitration

The litigation is examined by the court of arbitration where the work contract is carried out (except exceptions exhaustively enumerated by the law).

The litigations are examined in the section corresponding to the field of the principal activity of the employer or the derogatory statute of paid (VRP, frameworks); each court of arbitration comprises a formation of Référé and (except exception) five sections:

various activities,
Agriculture,
Trade and business services,
framing,
Industry.

The section is composed as follows:

an office of conciliation : a paid adviser and an adviser employer,
an office of judgment : two paid advisers and two advisers employers.

The section is thus divided into several compositions and the presidencies are systematically alternate from one office to another.

The advisers conciliation board

The court of arbitration is an equal formation elected in two colleges: by the employees, on the one hand, and by the employers, on the other hand. Each “Collège” (employers and paid registered voters on the conciliation board lists) elects the same number of advisers.

The mandate of advising lasts five years and it is renewable, for a new complete mandate, even as from the tenth year following the suspension of any community activity there (if there exists an election this year). The conciliation board elections constitute the principal test of representativeness for wage earners associations.

The advisers conciliation board exert on a purely voluntary basis, but they are:

either compensated contractually for the time spent to their functions, if they are elected college employers or if they are elected college paid and without community activity (applicants for work, pensioners, etc),
or normally remunerated, if they are in activity and paid elected officials of the college; the employer concerned being then made refund by the State the wages thus maintained and the related social contributions.

The elected advisers of the college of paid can exert their functions during their working time or see this comparable jurisdictional activity at a working time (case of the workers known as " postés") ; the employees elected in the college employers (directing, frameworks) are imperatively registered for this reason by their employers and they put up their conditions with remuneration and working time.

During their mandate and up to six months as from the end of this same mandate, the paid advisers conciliation board cannot be laid off without the authorization of the factory inspectorate (they have the protected paid statute of ).

One often reproaches this jurisdiction the fact that the advisers are not professionals of the Droit. Nevertheless, the rate of confirmation of its decisions by the courses of call is less low than that of the other jurisdictions of first degree.

The paid advisers profit from a six weeks absence per mandate for their formation.

The president and the vice-president of the council are also elected in an equal and collegial way, as a general meeting, with a one year mandate. The functions are allotted in alternation to the two colleges: one year out of two the president is resulting from the college of the employees, the vice-president of the college of the employers.

Conciliation board elections

See also: conciliation board Election (France)

Parts and conciliation board procedure

Comparisons with other civil jurisdictions

Similar characters

It is about a jurisdiction with whole share, with all the attached aspects, i.e.:

Like the other magistrates, the adviser industrial tribunal lends oath.

Under the cotutelle one of the first president of the Court of Appeal and the Public prosecutor, the court of arbitration is directed by a president and a vice-president (annual alternation employer and paid) assisted by a clerk as a chief; he is the same, in the sections equipped with a president and a vice-president. The " office administratif" of a court of arbitration is composed of the whole of the presidents and the vice-presidents of section. General meetings or of section can be convened, on a purely extraordinary basis, in addition to the ordinary annual general meeting of each beginning of year. In addition an official audience presents, before at the end of January, an assessment of the jurisdictional activity of the past year and proclaims the opening of the legal New Year's Day, this having for corollary the installation of the new elected or re-elected presidents.

the court of arbitration judges " In the name of French people… ".

the contradictory character of the Procédure is respected as much than in front of the other jurisdictions: the two parts emit turn-with-turn freely their arguments.

the procedure is described here as oral: pursuant to the provisions of article 16 of the New Code of Civil procedure which enacts the principle of the contradictory one, even when the parts by a lawyer or a union representative, they are not represented must proceed, in good time (largely before the day of the audience of pleading), with an exchange of the parts which will be versed with the debates; the parts can produce written conclusions (nonobligatory) which will have they to also be communicated. If a part is used at the last minute, without to be communicated, it can be isolated by the office of judgment (except if the opposing party is not opposed to its production) or the debate is returned to another audience.

the advisers conciliation board act in all Indépendance. However antagonisms can appear: the proximity of the trade-union and professional authorities of the advisers employers and paid and sometimes marked like likely to interfere with this independence, starting from the simplistic argument according to which advisers conciliation board would have a kind of “imperative” mandate said in contradiction with the oath that they lent; there, it would be indeed more about a dogmatic standpoint that of a judgment (impartial).

See too

In French Polynesia, New Caledonia and with Wallis-and-Futuna, there exists a similar jurisdiction which name court of work and not court of arbitration.
legal Order (France)
Factory inspectorate
List of the courts of arbitration with the number of advisers; distribution by course of call
Distribution in the conciliation board sections according to codes NAF

External bonds

the chronology of French Documentation
File on the courts of arbitration on the site of the Ministry for employment, social cohesion and housing
Heading Court of Arbitration of the site of Juristprudence
detailed Form of conciliation board request

Publicity diffused on television for the Court of Arbitration

References

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