French law

I posted this a couple of weeks ago but I suspect everyone was still on holiday. I'm looking for the correct term for the judge who decides whether there is enough evidence to mount a prosecution, the equivalent of the US District Attorney. I think it is Juge d'Instruction. Am I correct?

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 14, 2010 at 3:58pm

I think the word you're looking for is procureur, which is a generic term for "public prosecutor", covering things like a US "State Attorney", what in the UK we would usually call the "CPS" (Crown Prosecution Service) etc.

For specifically a District Attorney, I think you could just say e.g. procureur local or procureur du comté.

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Permalink Reply by Joannah Yacoub on September 14, 2010 at 4:57pm

Thank you so much. It's easy to make mistakes when searching a dictionary as that gives the transation but not always the usage. And though I know France, so far I haven't broken laws and come into direct contact with legal authorities. Much obliged...Joannah

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on September 14, 2010 at 5:43pm

Not so fast! I have some reason to believe that Joannah's definition does describe a Juge d'Instruction. Neil, what do you think a Juge d'Instruction is?

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Permalink Reply by Joannah Yacoub on September 14, 2010 at 6:13pm

I think you're both right. The juge d'instruction mounts an independent and impartial investigation to determine whether a case can be brought and passes all the information to the procureur who actually brings the prosecution. A judge has to be impartial until evidence is presented whereas a prosecuter has an accusatory function. That's if I have read the highlighted article correctly. Thank you for the link, it's very helpful. I'm writing a novel set partly in France and I do like to get it right (otherwise you get letters of correction and publishers don't like that)

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on September 15, 2010 at 3:49am

Well, juges d'instructions are usually described as "examining magistrates" in English (though I'm not sure there's the equivalent in either the UK or US legal system). There's a Wikipedia entry here that explains a little bit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system

I think if you're looking for the translation of "District Attorney", then procureur (local) is the appropriate translation. I notice that Dahl's Law Dictionary also suggests procureur général. In any case, I think it's a different thing to an examining magistrate. (Surprisingly, Dahl doesn't list juge d'instruction.)

P.S. I should stress I'm not a legal expert as such (though I am a professional translator and so have some dealings with legal texts).

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Permalink Reply by Joannah Yacoub on September 15, 2010 at 6:45pm

Thank you again for this link. It will be the Juge d'Instruction in that he is investigating a possible murder but one where the exact facts are not clear. Both links suggested were great and I thank you and Stu Harris for taking the time to answer.
Joannah