Presumed Innocent? Cour de Cassation

---

This week we court clerks were taken on a private guided tour of the Cour de Cassation (France’s highest “court of last resort”). The public is not allowed in to tour the Cour de Cassation, so our tour was a special treat.



The Cour de Cassation is located within the massive complex known as the Palais de Justice, which sits at the heart of medieval Paris on the Ile de la Cite. Sainte Chapelle, beloved by every visitor to Paris for its soaring stained glass windows, is right next door, and Notre Dame is a stone’s throw away.



Cases are tried before the Cour de Cassation after they have already been through an appeals court, as I understand it. The Cour has a special staff of its own judges, prosecutors and support staff; attorneys must undergo additional schooling and exams, and only a tiny handful are licensed to appear before the Cour. The Cour only decides cases on a matter of law or procedure, not fact. I was interested to learn that the Cour’s decisions are quite brief and technical; there is no written narrative decision to help explain the judiciary’s reasoning, and help guide future cases, as in common law.



I had a small adventure just getting admitted into the Cour de Cassation. I somehow missed our group going in, and found myself locked out of the Cour. After some hand-wringing, I managed to persuade one of the guards at the private attorneys’ entrance that he ought to let me inside, even though I lacked the requisite identification (thanks, negotiation skills classes!). Once inside the stronghold, my next task was to find my group within the vast complex. I felt a bit like a spy, wandering through this highly secured area without proper clearance, peering discreetly into courtrooms and chambers, looking for familiar faces. I finally found them waiting to enter, ironically, the Chambre Criminelle.



The architecture and décor of the Cour de Cassation is truly stunning- my photos came out dark and don’t properly do it justice. It felt a bit like stepping through a portal straight from the sidewalks of Paris into a palace. (Hmm, perhaps that’s why it’s called the Palais de Justice?) Beautiful sculptures everywhere, marble floors, vaulted ceilings, gilt everything. The Cour de Cassation has its own age-old symbol, a set of interlocking letter “c’s” (not unlike the Chanel logo), and this symbol appears everywhere in the wood carvings and painted ceilings of the Cour, punctuated with a very occasional fleur de lys. One memorable painted ceiling showed Lady Justice, sitting in the clouds of heaven holding her scales, flanked by Charlemagne and Napolean, those other great dispensers of justice. The judges’ dining room has a fantastic neoclassical painting of Paris, covering a wall about 20 meters long.



There is a pomp and grandeur about this court that even the loveliest of judicial buildings in the U.S.—the Ninth Circuit courthouse in San Francisco, for example- don’t even touch- this made most American courthouses I have seen look more prim and Puritanical than I usually think of them. Would it be nice to have fancier courthouses back home? The aesthetician in me would always welcome more gilding and painted ceilings. On the other hand, in the Cour de Cassation one palpably feels the lingering echoes of an old empire. The experience is to feel impressed and intimidated. For the wrongly accused, appearing in such a place must be exquisitely stressful. All in all, while I love being a professional tourist in France, I think I’m happy enough with our plainer American courts. If only attorneys got to wear the cool black robes. I know better than to even dream of the wigs.

---

Photos

Cour de Cassation entrance
The guards I had to negotiate with for entrance.