Questionnaire France
I.1 Do the police have powers to channel an offence aside without further involvement of the criminal justice system?
No they do not. According to the distinctions set out in the Code of Criminal Procedure, the judicial police is charged with the task of discovering violations of the criminal law, of gathering evidence of such violations and of identifying their perpetrators, unless and until a judicial investigation has been initiated (sect. 14 CCP). Where a judicial investigation is initiated, the judicial police services carry out the duties delegated to them by the judicial investigation authorities and defer to their orders (sect. 14 CCP). The strong powers of the judicial police, whether proceeding within preliminary inquiries or within a flagrant offence investigation, are strictly controlled by the prosecution services and judicial authorities (for example, sect. 18 CCP). The public prosecutor controls the judicial police’s action in three different ways: supervising and checking investigations; being in charge in the co-ordination of the services involved and choosing the service that will be responsible for the inquiries. The judicial police officers thus have no autonomous power of decision regarding any further involvement of the criminal justice system in the offences they are inquiring about. Furthermore, judicial police officers are required to notify the district prosecutor forthwith of the felonies, misdemeanours and petty offences of which they have knowledge. As soon as their operations are concluded, they must send him the official records they have drafted. Any document or other instrument related to the offence is sent to him at the same time; the articles seized are held at his disposal (sect. 19 CCP).
