dubkitty wrote:it does seem that the French police are perhaps gilding the lily a bit. given Varg's past it's difficult to give him benefit of the doubt, but France also put Tim Blake of Gong and Hawkwind on a sentence of 18 months' house arrest because when another driver, who was drunk, crossed the center line and hit him head-on Tim had a trace amount of cannabis in his system...after Tim died in the helicopter on the way to the hospital and was revived. France also still operates under the Napoleonic Code, which requires the suspect to prove his innocence rather than the Anglo-American presumption of innocence, so i'm a little dubious about French legal proceedings especially when they're aimed at residents of France from other countries.
Not true dude. Some stuff hasn't change especially regarding basic contract rules from the Napoleon era but... The
Code de Procédure Civile (Civil Procedure Code) was redone from 1935 to 1973. In civil procedure, the claimant has to produce proof to support his claim while the defendant has to produce proof as well to support his defense. They're both considered innocent till a judge states otherwise. The
Code de Procédure Pénale (Crime/offenses and such procedure code) was elaborated from 1945-1946 to 1958. Both of these codes contain a modern version of the presumption of innocence which already existed in the Napoleonic code and first and foremost during the Revolution.
The major difference between the anglosaxon way and ours is that you have an adversarial system (two parties represented by a lawyer are trying to convince the judge) where we have an inquisitorial system in our crime courts, in which a judge (
juge d'instruction) leads the police forces in their investigation, examine witnesses, interrogate the suspects and such. If they manage to get enough material to support their theory, the case is then transmitted to be examined by a jury or a another group of judge depending on the crime which will decide on the verdict after reviewing the facts and evidence. The major advantage is that you don't have to pay top lawyer fees so that you get a decent investigation of your case. The major drawback is that with the cutbacks in the police forces it has become a rather painful (longer) process to do proper investigation (well, what I think is proper investigation).
Seriously, the only procedure that you can worry about in France is in front of an administrative court, cause it's still the Napoleonic organization in there and it's a PITA. We have a Republic FFS, why does that shitty stuff still exists here ? One of my heroes stated that "The Great Revolution of 1789 is only beginning as long as it's equalitarian work isn't dealt and done with". We still have so much work
Also, politics are making it harder for the justice to work properly. As a jurist, I still cannot understand why Snowden wasn't given asylum in France and why they made so much of a fuss banning Evo Morales from flying above our territory. Our president and the former one should try and remind themselves from the one they stated were major influences to them, whether it was François MItterrand, Charles de Gaulle or even Jacques Chirac. So much atlanticism is baffling me
