414 On the Stale of Criminal Justice in France. [APRIL, 



from the same fact, are quite distinct, and the right of criminal prose- 

 cution is vested solely in the public prosecutor.* The person injured 

 cannot arrest the action of the Ministere public, and if he join in such 

 action, he can become a party, only so far as regards his civil interests ; 

 but he is bound to pay all the costs, should the accused be acquitted. 



The formidable attributes of the Ministere public being, as we have 

 already observed, unattended with responsibility, are the more danger- 

 ous, because every functionary invested with them, holds his appoint- 

 ment at the pleasure of the crown. Hence they become an engine of 

 cruel oppression in the hands of a corrupt government. But the most 

 common inducement to exercise them with undue, not to say unjust and 

 inhuman severity, is one of personal interest the hope of preferment 

 to higher rank. The promotion of an officer of the parquet^ depends, 

 after his subserviency to the existing government, upon his skill in 

 detecting the existence of crime, and his success in obtaining convic- 

 tions where the justice of conviction is doubtful. To prove criminality 

 without evidence, is a test of talent which leads to distinction and 

 celebrity. 



Neither is transcendant eloquence, nor forcible reasoning, a necessary 

 concomitant of success in such cases. A plausible man, of very ordi- 

 nary talents, may easily succeed in misleading an unsuspicious jury, 

 because every thing connected with the administration of justice, in a 

 French Cour d'Assises nay, the very law itself assists the public pro- 

 secutor in his attempt to maintain the truth of that which he knows to 

 be false, or, to use a milder expression, in his endeavour to present as 

 true that which he doubts. The criminal law of France is founded 

 upon the doctrine of constructive crime, and the investigation made by 

 a judge of instruction, instead of being confined to the proof of a spe- 

 cific charge, extends to the whole previous life of the person impli- 

 cated ; by which means a mass of facts, independent of each other, and 

 presenting not in themselves a shadow of criminality, may be so con- 

 nected and arranged as to form a specious semblance of guilt. It 

 matters not whether these facts be brought to bear upon the identical 

 imputation which gave rise to the proceedings, or upon any new charge, 

 provided a crime of some sort be framed out of the materials collected ; 

 because the title of the accusation is not fixed until the instruction is 

 terminated, and the party ready for trial. 



The labours of the judge of instruction, J selected in each case by the 

 public prosecutor himself, depend, as to their duration, upon his mere 

 will, or, perhaps, upon that of the Ministere public, to whom he is 

 always obsequiously subservient. An incarceration of several years 

 before trial is an event of common occurrence ; nor, after conviction, is 

 this previous captivity, termed provisional, ever taken into account, 

 _ . 



* Same code, 1, 3, and 4. 



-j- Office assigned to the members of the Ministere public. 



There are twelve judges of instruction at Paris. 



M. Bourbon-Leblanc, a distinguished French Advocate, to whom Peyronnet, 

 formerly Minister of Justice, and Jacquinot-Pampelune, ex-Procureur General of 

 Paris, were personally hostile, was arrested, provisionally, in 1824, and tried and 

 acquitted in 1830, a period of more than six years ! ! ! Bail can never be received 

 when the charge is above a simple offence (delictus), and when allowed on the 

 most trivial charge, the law makes it a favour, and not a right, so that it is optional 

 with the public prosecutor and the Chamber of Counsel to grant it or not. 



