Questionnaire France
I.46 Are these instructions made public?
What indeed could be called the sentencing
guidelines on the basis of which the public prosecutor knows what sentence to
request in his final speech are imposed upon him through standardised
formulations listed in the special part of the Penal Code, this as a result of
the principle of legality of crimes and penalties stated by sect. 111-3 PC.
There is thus no real possible gap between what is strictly written in the
codified definitions of crimes and statutory punishments attached to them, and
the sentence that the public prosecutor can finally request on a specified
case. Nonetheless, a margin of individualisation lies in the scale of principal
and additional penalties suggested by the law itself, within which prosecutors
and judges can select the precise amount of fine or time of imprisonment they
reckon should be sentenced at the end of the court trial in a specific case.
Further, general instructions can of course be issued by the Ministry of
Justice, who is politically accountable for the policy of the prosecution
service, as to what specific crime or category of offences shall be focused on,
and what shall require more attention and severity of the prosecution services
as a priority in public policy on crime. Such general instructions are issued
by the Chancellery to inferior public prosecutors through circulars related to
specified fields which topicality identifies them as requiring stiffer
penalties (for example, sexual crimes involving minors, acts of terrorism,
corporate criminality, and so forth).
