zlacker

This is really useful for those of us who are really only familiar with the US system. Let me restate a few things to make sure I understand, and follow with some questions:

1. The "procureur" and "juge d'instruction" are chosen from the same pool of judges, with the former appointed by the government executive, and the latter nominated by the judges themselves.

2. Does the executive choose one "procureur" to serve a particular region for a particular span of time, or do they choose a "procureur" every time there's some sort of criminal activity they think needs investigation?

3. How is the pool of judges themselves chosen? In the US, for example, federal judges are chosen by the president and confirmed by the senate, and serve for life. While state court judges are typically elected for a specified term.

4. Supposing we both live in France and I break into your house and steal from you. What happens next? For the sake of telling a story, suppose that you have a security camera from which I could be recognized, but not so clearly that anybody can be certain it's me until someone searches my garage and finds your stolen things. Walk me through the process of who does what?

>>repire+(OP)
Sorry, I'm not a legal expert, it's mostly what I remember from classes. I'll do my best

1-2/ I'm pretty sure the procureur can be named from anywhere , to any court, an can be an ex-arttorney while I think the juge d'instruction is named by the local magistrates, but have to have followed a very strict formation beforehand (and I think you have to be a top scorer or something).

3/ judges are chosen by passing a very competitive test before 31yo, then being taught during 3 more years (to access the test you need a master degree, if you fail you can still become an attorney, and attorneys can work a number of years and pass the test again, but in that case the age limit is like 40)

4/ here I'm not exactly sure. I go to the police, they investigate. If they found nothing but have reasonable suspicions, they ask a judge to authorise a 'perquisition' (basically a warrant, which have to be served between 8 AM and 10 PM). A juge d'instruction will only be responsible for an investigation in very difficult administrative cases (they are insulated from political pressure as much as possible, that makes them very good to investigate corruption cases) or in a heinous crime (basically anything involving children, multiple murders, terrorism)