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Legal System in France

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Legal system in France
France uses a civil law system; that is, law arises primarily from written statutes; judges are not to make law, but merely to interpret it (though the amount of judge interpretation in certain areas makes it equivalent to case law).

The Conseil d'État sits in the Palais Royal
Many fundamental principles of French Law were laid in the Napoleonic Codes. Basic principles of the rule of law were laid in the Napoleonic Code: laws can only address the future and not the past (ex post facto laws are prohibited); to be applicable, laws must have been officially published.
In agreement with the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the general rule is that of freedom, and law should only prohibit actions detrimental to society. As Guy Canivet, first president of the Court of Cassation, said about what should be the rule in French law:
“Freedom is the rule, and its restriction is the exception; any restriction of Freedom must be provided for by Law and must follow the principles of necessity and proportionality”.
That is, law may lay out prohibitions only if they are needed, and if the inconveniences caused by this restriction do not exceed the inconveniences that the prohibition is supposed to remedy.
France does not recognize religious law, nor does it recognize religious beliefs as a motivation for the enactment of prohibitions. As a consequence, France has long had neither blasphemy laws nor sodomy laws (the latter being abolished in 1789).
It’s regularly updated (e.g. in 1994 a new criminal code was introduced, including clauses on sexual harassment, ecological terrorism, crimes against humanity and maximum jail sentences, which are 30 years). France has two judicial systems: administrative and judiciary. The administrative system deals with disputes between the government and individuals, while the

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