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Untitled Article
dred pounds , while the highest does not exceed three hundred pounds a year ; the amount being regulated in strict reference to the population of the towns where the court is held . * The assize courts take cognizance exclusively of criminal cases ; that is , of the crimes or serious offences referred to them by the cours
royales . They consist of three , four , or five judges , members of the
cour royale , but never belonging to the section that finds the in * dictments . The distinguishing accompaniment of a French assize court is a jury , which , as in England , consists of twelve members , and decides on the facts of the case , leaving the application of the law , however , to the judges . Complete unanimity was at no time necessary in a French jury . At first a majority
often to two was required ; but this was subsequently altered to a simple majority , with the qualification that , in case of condemnation by only two voices , ( seven to five , ) the verdict should be reconsidered by the judges , and the party acquitted if , in taking judges and jurymen collectively , there was a majority in his favour . The assizes are the only courts in France that are not stationary .
They are , however , held in the chief town of a department once in three months . The costs of suit are very exactly defined by a printed tariff or table ; and it is a rule in criminal as well as civil cases that the party condemned or losing , is liable for all . The special courts ( cours speciales ) were constituted out of the usual course for the trial of state offences by Bonaparte as engines of his tyranny ; the cours prevotales by the restored Bourbons as
instruments of theirs . j Besides the foregoing applications of that term , the name of tribunal , or court , is given in France to a committee of five merchants , or leading tradesmen , appointed by the mercantile body iuevery town of considerable business orpopulation . Their competency extends to all disputes occurring in mercantile business , and falling within the provisions of the code de commerce . Their decisions are founded on that code and on the
customs of merchants , and are final in all cases below a thousand francs . The presence of three members is necessary to form a court ; the duty is performed gratuitously , and the number of the courts in France is between one and two hundred . The court of cassation , the highest known to the French laws , is held at Paris , and is composed of three chambers , each of sixteen members and a president , making , with the premier president , a total of fifty-two . Its province is to decide definitively in all appeals from the decree * of the cours royales ; investigating not
the facts of a case but the forms of law , and ordering wherever * The English reader should , however , recollect the great difference of the value of UMMWy in France and England , as well at the still greater difference in the style and
expenses of living in the two countries . f These have been gotten rid of since the revolution of 1830 . The present king is fuftpvotcd of being denirous of restoring them .
Untitled Article
104 Notices of France .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 104, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/36/
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