Public prosecutor (France)

In France, the public prosecutor is the Magistrat parquet floor charged with the Public action near a court. It represents the Public ministry in the jurisdiction near which it exerts. It is assisted by substitutes , Magistrat S also. It is primarily in charge of the public action for the repression of the Infraction S.

" Procureur" from the Latin pro curare comes, which means " for soigner".

Role of the Public prosecutor in France

In France, the role of the Public prosecutor rests on the confiscation of private revenge to the profit on the public power. It takes part thus in the implementation of a legal policy laid down at the governmental level and declined at the local level. It must thus take care of the implementation of directives of criminal policy.

He is the guard of the Right and international engagements of France in front of the jurisdictions, guard of the general interests of the company and, like any magistrate, of individual and collective public freedoms.

He has a capacity clean and exclusive to represent the Nation and must be made in front of the jurisdictions the interpreter of the national will.

Placé under the authority and the control of the Minister of Justice - Minister for Justice it is charged to take care of the application of the law.

He holds his capacity and his legitimacy of the law.

It is about the 14th century that the function of prosecutor emerges within the occupation of lawyer, at the request of the Parliaments. Its name and its role are inspired by the procedure developed within the jurisdictions of the Enquiry. The ordinance of March 25th 1303 under Philippe Beautiful the institutes the Procureurs of the King or the Gens of the King .

It is at that time that it takes gradually the name of Parquet. Indeed, in the courtrooms, the place of the prosecutor was delimited by a small park, from where the name of " parquet".

Nowadays, the Public prosecutor represents the Public ministry in front of the whole of the jurisdictions of the first degree of his spring (Article L311-15 of the Code of the legal organization) and can or sometimes must intervene in front of the civil jurisdictions (for example as regards state of the people: adoption, nationality, matrimonial mode, international civil removal of child, supervisions…), jurisdictions of the minors (educational welfare to the profit of the minors in danger), jurisdictions commercial (collective procedures, sanctions of the fraudulent behaviors of tradesmen,…) even conciliation board.

In the penal field, it takes part in the public policies of prevention and repression of criminality and the delinquency. The mission of the Public prosecutor then consists to seek and make seek the existence of infringements (Contravention S, Délit S and Crime S) and to continue their authors of them. Within this framework, it controls the activity of the judicial police: the investigations of obvious offenses, orders preliminary investigations for the nonobvious businesses or decides to open information by the sasine of a Examining magistrate, in particular as regards crime (it is then obligatory) or of complex offenses.

The Public prosecutor does not have, in France, the obligation to achieve an act of continuation vis-a-vis an infringement. Under the terms of the principle of Appropriateness of the continuations, it can indeed decide on a classification without continuation. The majority of the classifications without continuation intervene for legal reasons: 1/ The author of the infringement could not be identified, absence of infringement, amnesties, regulation of the public action, abrogation of the criminal law, irresponsibility of the author… 2/ Implementation and execution of conditions (compensation for the victim, regularization of an administrative status,…) 3/ Implementation of alternatives to the criminal prosecutions (recall with the law, penal Mediation, training courses or of sensitizing,…)

Concretely, when an infringement is made, an investigation is carried out by a service of investigation (police force or gendarmerie) under the direction and the control of the public prosecutor. Indeed, a certain number of bolts of procedure make it possible this magistrate to correctly fulfill this mission: for example, the prosecutor is advised and controls the placements as a police custody, it is the only one with being able to prolong this one, it gives the authorizations necessary to carry out certain acts (interpellation, extension of competence) within the framework of the preliminary investigation… Lastly, the public prosecutor returns a decision of classification of the procedure, continuation in front of the Court, or engagement of an alternative to the continuations. This decision is given only if the Magistrate estimates that the investigation is finished, i.e. that he considers that no other act useful for the manifestation of the truth is necessary.

Often the decision is given following a telephone report carried out by the judiciary police officer in load of the file to the magistrate. Nevertheless, being the technical dossiers or complex, the decisions are delivered after reading of the procedure and possible research of the texts and applicable jurisprudence.

The public prosecutor does not have the same capacities as the Examining magistrate, which is another magistrate charged to direct investigations. Thus, in particular, it cannot make proceed office to phone-tappings, it cannot authorize itself the Police force to carry out searchings without the agreement of the Master of the places and especially, the possibilities that it has to require that the Judges of Freedoms and Detention is seized so that blamed is placed in detention pending trial are limited and require that an examining magistrate be in load of the file. Moreover, it does not have the time necessary concretely to ensure the follow-up of the complex affairs. When the law (as regards crime) or the needs for the investigation requires it, he thus entrusts the follow-up of the file to the examining magistrate. This last cannot only be seized.

When a business is ready to be judged, the Public prosecutor, or one of his substitutes, pronounces an oral indictment at the end of the debates in front of the Magistrates' court, which is a room of the Court of Bankruptcy or a formation of the County court. Speaking in the name of the company, it synthesizes the elements of culpability and claims the application of a sorrow. In front of the Court of Assizes, this oral indictment is generally pronounced by a prosecuting attorney or a general substitute, depend on the Court of Appeal or also by the one or Public prosecutor of its substitutes. The Public ministry is thus charged with showing the existence of the proof of the culpability of an defendant or defendant. But its duty of magistrate leads it, if need be, to require the payment or the release, if the debates show the innocence or the absence of proof of the culpability. It is the application of the principle there “the feather is serf but the word is free” which devotes the absolute freedom of speech of a magistrate of the Parquet floor although it belongs at a hierarchical institution. This freedom of speech is devoted by the decision of national courts like international.

At all events the Public ministry bases its action on the principle of indivisibility. An act made by a magistrate of the Parquet floor famous is made by the entire Parquet floor: thus a magistrate of the Parquet floor can replace in any circumstance including in the course of audience one of his colleagues.

Statute

The Public prosecutor and the substitutes of the prosecutor belong to the legal Corps, like the Juge S and the listeners of justice. With the general substitutes and prosecuting attorneys in the courses of call, and the prosecuting attorneys at the Court of appeal, his substitute and Public prosecutor compose the State prosecutors.

They thus profit from the statute of the magistrature without laying out however guarantee of irremovability, reserved to the only judges. Contrary to the latter, the members of the Parquet floor are indeed subjected to a hierarchical chain which attaches them, via the public prosecutor attached to a Court of Appeal, with the Minister for Justice. They are thus held to act in accordance with the instructions which can be to them given while preserving a freedom of speech at the audiences.

Sources

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