Legal Vocabulary: Objective Law & State Coercion

• This document describes legal vocabulary.

Objective law

• Describes all legal rules governing life in society.
• These rules are general, abstract, and impersonal.
• Objective law aims to organize relations between individuals and ensure social order.
• Distinguished from subjective law, which concerns individual prerogatives.

State coercion

• Constraint power exercised by the State to enforce legal rules.
• Manifests as sanctions for non-compliance with laws.
• Includes fines, imprisonment, or forced execution measures.

Mandatory rule

• A non-derogable rule of law by agreement.
• Imposes absolutely on everyone, even if parties want something else.
• Rules on public safety or consumer protection are often mandatory.

Default rule

• Applies only if parties have not provided otherwise.
• Supplements the absence of expressed will by the parties.
• In contract law, a default rule may determine the place of delivery if not specified.

Moral

• Set of principles and values guiding human behavior.
• Based on what is considered right or wrong.
• Unlike law, morality is not enforced by state coercion.
• It relies on individual conscience and social pressure.

Equity

• Notion of applying justice considering the particular circumstances of each case.
• Adapts the rigor of the rule of law to the concrete situation.
• Ensures fairer and more adapted justice.

Justice

• Fundamental principle aiming to give everyone their due.
• Implies impartiality, balance, and equality before the law.
• Justice is distributive (fair allocation of resources) or corrective (reparation of wrongs and damages).

Legal security

• Principle that citizens must be able to foresee the legal consequences of their actions.
• Implies stability, clarity, and accessibility of legal norms.
• Includes non-retroactivity of laws (with exceptions).

Hierarchy of norms

• Legal norms are organized according to an order of priority.
• Each norm must respect the norms superior to it.
• At the top is the Constitution, followed by international treaties, laws, regulations, and individual administrative acts.

Executive power

• One of the three state powers (with legislative and judicial).
• Responsible for applying laws and managing state affairs.
• Exercised by the government (President, Prime Minister, and ministers) in France.

Legislative power

• Responsible for drafting and voting on laws.
• Exercised by Parliament, composed of the National Assembly and the Senate in France.

Regulatory power

• Held mainly by the executive to adopt regulations (decrees, orders).
• Specify or supplement laws.
• Framed by the Constitution and exercised in areas not reserved for law by Article 34 of the French Constitution.

Regulation

• Act of general and impersonal scope from the executive or administrative authority.
• Regulations can take the form of decrees, orders, or ordinances unless ratified by Parliament.

Law in the formal sense

• Act adopted by Parliament following the legislative procedure.
• Can cover any subject but may not necessarily be normative (e.g., a treaty ratification law).

Law in the material sense

• Any general and abstract legal rule, regardless of its origin.
• Whether it comes from Parliament or the executive.
• A material law can include certain regulations or international norms.

Constitution

• Fundamental text defining the organization, functioning, and powers of state institutions.
• Includes the rights and freedoms of citizens.
• The French Constitution of 1958 frames the Fifth Republic.

Standard

• Legal rule binding on individuals and institutions.
• Can be written (laws, regulations, decrees) or unwritten (custom, general principles of law).

Constitutional Council

• French institution responsible for checking the conformity of laws to the Constitution.
• Oversees the regularity of national elections and referendums.
• Composed of nine representatives elected by the three presidents: Republic, Senate, and National Assembly.
• Members serve nine-year terms.
• Established on October 4, 1958.

Block of constitutionality

• Set of constitutional standards considered by the Constitutional Council to check the conformity of laws.
• Includes the Constitution of 1958, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, the Preamble to the 1946 Constitution, and the 2004 Environment Charter.
• Also, fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic.

General principles of law (PGD)

• Unwritten rules developed by the administrative judge (especially the Council of State).
• Bind the administration even without text.
• Principle of respect for the rights of defense or the principle of equality before the law.

Conflict of laws

• Situation where two laws seem applicable to the same case.
• Either in time (old vs new law) or in space (laws of several countries).

Legislative value

• Hierarchical level of laws adopted by the legislative power (Parliament).
• A norm with legislative value can only be modified by another law or by a norm of higher value, such as a constitutional norm.

Constitutional value

• Hierarchical level of rules contained in the Constitution.
• They take precedence over all other legal norms and bind ordinary laws.

Retroactivity in mitius

• Principle that a milder criminal law (reducing a penalty or removing an incrimination) applies retroactively to acts committed before its entry into force.

Interpretive law

• Does not create a new rule.
• Clarifies or specifies an existing law.
• Has retroactive effect because it is always considered part of the law it interprets.

Transitory provisions

• Temporary rules set by a new law to organize the transition between old and new legislation.
• Help avoid conflicts of laws over time.

Principle of immediate effect of the new law

• A new law applies immediately to current and new legal situations, unless transitional provisions or contrary rules provide otherwise.

Principle of non-retroactivity of laws

• A law cannot apply to facts prior to its entry into force, unless it is milder in criminal matters (retroactivity in mitius).

Survival of the old law

• Exception to the principle of immediate effect where the old law continues to apply to ongoing legal situations even after the entry into force of a new law.

Entry into force of law

• Moment when a law becomes applicable.
• Generally occurs after its promulgation and publication in the Official Journal.
• Often after a delay set by law or by default after a publication delay.

Promulgation

• Act by which the head of state officially acknowledges the existence of a law adopted by Parliament.
• Orders its publication to make it applicable.
• The president makes it enforceable and has 15 days to promulgate and by signing it becomes exutory.

Repeal

• Suppression of a law that ceases to be in force.
• Can be express (decided by a new law) or tacit.
• The judge decides if the old law is compatible with the new law (if a new law incompatible with the old one).

"No one is deemed to ignore the law"

• A person cannot invoke ignorance of the law to escape its application.
• Guarantees legal certainty, although access to the law is sometimes complex.
• Promises a certain legal security.

Appeal

• Common remedy of reformation or annulment by which a party brings the case before a higher court.

Expected

• Paragraph of a judgment containing its own motivation.

Dismissal without reference

• In a dismissal, there is nothing left to judge.
• The dismissed judgment had declared an appeal admissible, whereas it was out of time.
• There is no need to return to a court of appeal.
• The second hypothesis of the dismissal without referral is when the facts, found and assessed by the judges on the merits, allow the Court to apply the appropriate rule of law to the dispute.

Hat

• Presentation in general and abstract form of a general principle or an interpretation of a rule of law.
• Generally characterizes a landmark ruling.

Court decision

• Takes different names depending on the jurisdiction from which it emanates.
• The court renders a judgment, while the court (appeal or dismissal) renders an order.

Decision rendered at first and last instance

• The decision can only be the subject of an extraordinary remedy, closing the way to appeal.

Device

• Part of the court decision that contains the solution to the dispute.
• The outcome of the trial is known here.
• In a judgment, the court may condemn, dismiss (reject the claim)
• In an order, the Court of Appeal may confirm or reverse the judgment dismisses (with or without referral).

Facts

• Set of events that gave rise to the dispute.

Motives

• Argumentation developed by the magistrates in court decisions.

Means

• Argumentation developed by the parties to the proceedings (also sometimes referred to as the parties' pleas).
• Possibility of presenting a new plea at first instance and on appeal, but not when appealing to the higher court.
• The ground can be divided into branches.
• The ground is generally divided into three parts: the clause of the decision that is criticized ("it is complained that the order did ...");
• The grounds criticized of the decision challenged ("on the grounds that ...");
• Presentation of the solution that should be imposed (according to the author of the plea) (whereas ...; on the other hand ...; finally ...).

Parties to the trial

• Called by different names depending on the court hearing the case.
• Before a court, there is a plaintiff (the one who seizes the judge) and a defendant (his adversary)
• Before the Court of Appeal, an appellant (the one who seizes the Court and therefore appeals) and a defendant
• Before the Court of Appeal, there is an appellant (the one who seizes the Court and therefore appeals) and an appellee; before the Court of Dismissal, a plaintiff (the one who appeals for dismissal and seizes the Court) and the defendant.

Appeal

• Recourse against a final decision brought before the Court of Cassation.
• The appeal may be admitted or dismissed.
• If the appeal is accepted, the judgment or order will be totally or partially quashed and annulled.

Object of the request

• Result claimed by the parties.
• Also known as claims.

Procedure

• It is called "judicial history."
• Includes all court decisions concerning the case.
• Begins when one of the parties to the trial seizes the judge.

Visa

• Only in decisions of dismissal.
• Indicates the text on which the dismissal is based.