Criminal Law

In today’s time when some politicians are tempted to “use the coffin of a 12-year-old girl as a stepping stone” to promote their ideas and a deadly hatred, when others buy the domain name corresponding to the first name of the little victim of a heinous murder, when investigations for breach of the secrecy of pre-trial investigations are launched following the interview of a police officer giving details on this horrible news item, it appears essential to recall the importance – beyond the respect normally due to the victim – of a core value of our rule of law: The secrecy of pre-trial investigations and inquiries.

In a decision handed down on June 22, 2022, the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) overturned a judgment of the Rouen Investigation Chamber and held that an investigating judge who has indicted an individual who subsequently files an application for release from pre-trial detention may not act as liberty and custody judge in this same case.

In a decision issued on June 21, 2022, the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) recalled its case law according to which it is necessary, in order to seek the liability of a legal entity, to explicitly identify the body or the representative having committed the offence on behalf of said legal entity.

In a decision handed down on March 16, 2022, the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme court) has made an important clarification to its case law regarding the reduction of the victim’s right to compensation.

Indeed, it is now established that even the victim’s faute simple (mere negligence) can lead to a reduction of his right to compensation.

The OECD Working Group on the Implementation of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions adopted the France Phase 4 report on December 9, 2021.

This is an opportunity to recall the origin of this Convention before briefly presenting the good and bad marks distributed by the monitoring team in charge of assessing France’s progress in the fight against foreign bribery and underlining its key role in the defense of the values of the civilized world.

As early as 2016, the then Minister of Justice, Christiane Taubira, stressed the importance of criminal seizures in the legal arsenal.

The current interest in this process can be explained by the fact that it allows for a patrimonial penalty that deprives the perpetrator of the proceeds of his/her offense and, consequentially, of a title considered to be more fraudulent than legitimate.

However, the confiscation sometimes does not only affect the perpetrator of the offense but also a third-party owner of the seized property who has not committed any offenses.