Cour de Cassation


Related to Cour de Cassation: Cour d'appel

Cour de Cassation

a French appeal court. The only French court with a jurisdiction that covers the whole country but quite different from the British and American notion of a supreme court. There must be a ‘violation de la loi’, a legal error, before it can interfere with the lower court. It only ‘breaks’ the lower court's decision - the case is then remitted back to the court at the same level as the original court (although not the same one). If a case comes back again after having been reversed, it is sent to the Assemblée plenière on which all the chambers are represented. It will make a final decision if the issues are the same. There is the possibility of a third remit if matters are not the same or further information is required. It has over a hundred members, and it hears well over a hundred times more cases than the House of Lords. Judgments are given as a college, much like the COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. While there are no dissents, the report produced by one of the judges to the court is published.