French code of criminal procedure
French judiciary code
The French code of criminal procedure (French: Code de procédure pénale) is the codification of French criminal procedure, "the set of legal rules in France that govern the State's response to offenses and offenders". It guides the behavior of police, prosecutors, and judges in dealing with a possible crime. The current code was established in 1958 and replaced the code of 1808 created under Napoleon.
Terminology
According to a widely quoted definition by Roger Merle and André Vitu, the code de procédure pénale, or code of criminal procedure, is "the set of legal rules that govern the State's response to offenses and offenders".
Criminal law and criminal procedure
Criminal law (droit pénal) deals with an individual's rights and obligations under the law, as codified in a penal code. Under French criminal law, the penal code (CP) defines what acts (or omissions) are punishable. Criminal procedure (procédure pénale) focuses on how individuals accused of crimes are dealt with in the criminal justice system: how people are investigated, prosecuted, tried, and punished. In France, these procedural issues are codified in the French code of criminal procedure (Code de procédure pénale).
Role
Unlike civil law, which is applied without applying to the courts for the most part, criminal law is carried out through observance of the rules established by a written code, which connects the infraction committed, through a series of procedures leading ultimately to a sentence for an offender found guilty. Whereas civil law and civil procedure are separate areas of law, criminal law and criminal procedure are closely intertwined, and the glue is the code of criminal procedure.
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This entry incorporates text from “French code of criminal procedure” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.