Anglais juridique

ANGLAIS 

Note d’oral et 2 notes d’écrit.

Basic principles :

1st point : you must put in mind that the term « crime » in English isn’t the same as French. In France, you only refer to the most serious infractions (not contraventions ni délit but crime). In English, « crime » designs an offense, an infraction. The aim of this lecture is to outline the principles of criminology. There’s a very close relationship between crime and tort -> do smth that is going to harm somebody else. When there’s a crime that is committed, there’s also a tort that is suffered by someone.
Ex : drinking soft drink on a place, with your iPhone on the table. You see smn that steals ur iPhone and start running. The theft is stealing something and is both a crime and a tort.

If you disrespect the red light while driving for example, at 3am being drunk, was anybody directly affected ? Nope, it was a crime but w/o tort (no one harmed). And if it isn’t illegal it’s just a tort.

Another example : I’m going to sue you. The prosecutor is going to take me to court, he’s going to prosecute me. So the =/= between the two verbs is that to sue -> civil court, to prosecute -> criminal court. Also, the person in charge of prosecution is quite always from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) (=procureur) and in the US it’s the District/ State/ General attorney. In some states, those people can be elected.

*the police ARE going to come. They can ask you about what happened. The person you will refer to is an offender. You’re going to describe the offender that stole your iPhone. After that if they find the thief they will stop him and ask for identification (a doc that proves my identity) and they are going to search me (=me fouiller, =/= to frisk). If they find a phone I can’t unlock, they’ll probably take me to the police station to interview me. I’m going to be held in custody ; that means I’ll have to stay in the police station, as a suspect. But the police must inform me of my rights. As from now, you’re in custody for a maximum of 24hours (information of situation) and you have the right to call a relative/ an embassy and to remain silent. You can also be assisted by a lawyer (all the rights). You can call a lawyer from the state that will be a legal aid, lawyer on duty/on call (avocat commis d’office, also google duty solicitor, lawyer on call).

Attorney = US, Lawyer = UK

Huge difference between avocats commis d’office français et anglais : in France, you can’t stop the interview. You have the right to make a remark or ask the police officer to ask a specific question. The lawyer in England can tell his client not to answer one specific question, or even to stop the interview. His powers are way wider than the French lawyers.

Sometimes, the right to remain silent can be tricky as well in England. If they ask me « what were you doing the 5th of Sept between 4 and 6pm ?». If I don’t answer and some clue are enough, they might send me in court in front of the judge and prosecute me. If after that I remember of an alibi, I can be asked « why didn’t you say that sooner ? » and still be prosecuted. So, the right of silence is used against me.

At this point, I might confess. I can either be prosecuted or just be given a warning, a caution. If I’m first crime offender, considering my criminal record, I got more chances to get only a caution. (ggl previous convictions).

Police statement = procès verbal

After all that, if I still deny even with the matching description and the victim’s phone in my pocket, the police are going to search for witnesses or use CCTV (caméras de surveillance) in order to find a footage with the place and time the theft happened. If the witness statement (=procès verbal) is enough I might confess. But if the footage or the witness statement is not sufficient, the proofs are not enough, the prosecution is going to drop the case and release me. That’s because I wasn’t caught in the act (=pris en flagrant délit).

If the criminal record isn’t clean (reoffender) : the man is going to be kept in custody and to appear before the next available court (immediate appearance = comparution immédiate). The man is going to be released bc the prosecution needs to investigate more, it’s going to serve a summonS (=convocation, assignation ou citation) on the suspect. So they are going to give him a document which say « you have to appear at la cour de Montpellier ». If he gets arrested, the prosecution won’t be immediate. Imagine the suspect isn’t French ; then maybe he will go back to his country. So the police are going to release him on bail (=le relâcher sous caution) : he has to compel under specific conditions, pre-release bail conditions. The police are going to surrender the passport, and every day the suspect must go to the police center a few times, and sometimes the suspect has to pay money (pre-bail conditions). At that stage, he isn’t guilty, bc he isn’t in jail. The police has the right to keep him in jail before the trial : be on remand (détention provisoire). Court house (=tribunal), court rooms (= salles d’audience), hearings (=audiences). He can stay at home (house arrest), or get an electronic monitoring. Those are post-release bail conditions.

Names of the list of infractions about our example :

Indictment (mise en accusation, inculpation), hit and run (délit de fuite), breath test (test d’alcolémie).

3 categories of offenses in the UK : 

-Summary offences : no big deal (traffic offenses, …) : magistrate’s courts ( the people sitting are not professional judges, but ordinary citizens with clean criminal record) with limited sentences (max 6 months in jail/imprisonment). In England, the fines (amendes) are based on the salary/incomes. In France, it’s fixe.

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