1832/J [ 413 3srvjwtl 



hi\d 3r rjj gu jiro JbslloT yirltoomti 



ON THE STATE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN TRANCE. 



THE code of laws which, in France, regulates the prosecution and 

 punishment of crimes and offences, is one of iron-handed oppression. 

 Bequeathed by the expiring despotism of the French empire, to the 

 restoration of the Bourbons, it has outlived the ascendancy of that 

 infatuated race, to form, at the present day, a strange anomaly with the 

 principles which led to the revolution of 1830 with the constitution 

 then framed with the free institutions upon which the French monar- 

 chy now reposes. 



Napoleon, in the zenith of his power, framed the Code d f Instruction 

 Criminelle rather as a means of arbitrary government than a preventive 

 of crime ; and with this view, he exempted public functionaries from 

 its operation. With the semblance of providing against all undue ex- 

 ercise of power, this code tends, in reality, to keep the community in 

 awe by the terror of its oppression. No individual, however free from 

 reproach, who does not belong to the class of functionaries, is beyond 

 the reach of its lash ; for no evidence is required to deprive him of his 

 liberty, it being a doctrine of French criminal law, that an accusation 

 must in itself warrant provisional imprisonment until proof of the fact 

 can be found. Thus any citizen may be incarcerated upon a mere 

 alleged culpability, and kept in confinement, without a trial, during an 

 indefinite lapse of time, even to the term of life itself, provided an inter- 

 rogatory, or any other act of instruction take place once in every ten 

 years.* 



The due execution of this monstrous code is entrusted to the discreet 

 vigilance of a body of the high magistracy, consisting of the several 

 Procureurs Generaux, Procureurs du Roi, Avocals Generaux, Avocats du 

 Hoi, and Substituts. These officers constitute the Ministere public, or 

 agency of public prosecution, of which each Procureur General is the 

 chief within the jurisdiction of the Cour Royale to which he is attached. 

 They exercise a variety of functions, and are invested with a power 

 over the liberties of the subject, almost beyond control, and entirely 

 free from personal responsibility. A French Procureur General is at 

 the same time high magistrate and public prosecutor, accusing from the 

 very judgment seat; he unites in his single person the character of 

 judge with the duties of high sheriff and chief constable, and thus holds 

 in one hand the scales of justice, and in the other wields the sword of 

 executive power ; his requisitoire consigns to jail whomsoever it may 

 please him to tax with crime,t or even incipient criminal intention, and 

 no acquitted prisoner can be liberated but upon his warrant, which he 

 may at all times withhold. He exercises, moreover, a special surveifc 

 lance\ over the criminal judges, and with it a necessarily strong per- 

 sonal influence, much increased by the great patronage he enjoys, as 

 the judges look forward to preferment through his recommendation. 



In French law, the action civile, and the action criminelle, resulting 



* Code cT Instruction Criminelle, 637- 



j- Code ^Instruction Criminelle^ 47, authorizes the Procureur du Roi to accuse and 

 incarcerate, no matter how he may have acquired his information. See, also, same 

 code, 22, 27, 47, 249, 274, &c. &c. &c., relative to the functions of the Minislere 

 public. 



Code d'Instruction Crimindle, 270. 



