¹ See for example: Renoux, Thierry & Roux, A., L'administration de la justice en France, Que sais-je? (1994).Google Scholar

² Any research that attempts to present French judicial government to an English-speaking audience is faced many historical idiosyncracies and “intraduisibles”. This requires to clarify the lexicon from the very beginning: “magistrats” and “magistrature” (hereafter: magistrates and the judiciary) refer to the common statute of those who have been recruited through the concours and trained at the “Ecole nationale de la magistrature”. They include both the “magistrats du siege” (hereafter: sitting judges) and “magistrats du parquet” (hereafter: prosecutors).Google Scholar

³ Daniela Piana & Antoine Vauchez, Il Consiglio superiore della magistratura (2012).Google Scholar

⁴ On the strongly rooted professional habitus of administrative and political loyalty within the judiciary, see Bancaud, Alain, Une exception ordinaire. La magistrature française en France 1930–1950 (2002).Google Scholar

⁵ While the principle has long constituted an authentic act of Republican faith was reactivated in 1848 and then again in 1870 with the IIIrd Republic, and inspired a variety of non-professional tribunals (starting with the cour d'assises), it never became central in French judiciary: Françoise Lombard, Les jurés. Justice representative et representations de la justice (1993); L'election des juges. essai de bilan historique français et contemporain (Jacques Krynen ed., 1999).Google Scholar

⁶ Cf. Benoit Garnot, Histoire de la justice (2009); Jean-Pierre Royer, Jean-Paul Jean, Histoire de la justice du XVIIeme siecle a nosjours (2010).Google Scholar

⁷ Bancaud, supra note 4.Google Scholar

⁸ Charle, Christophe, État et magistrats, les origines d'une crise prolongée, 96-97 Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 39 (1993).Google Scholar

⁹ Id. at 9, 39–48.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Roussel, Violaine, Affaires de juges. Les magistrats dans les scandales politiques en France (2002).Google Scholar

¹¹ On the history of “concours”, see Fillon, Catherine, Marc Boninchi, Devenir juge 60–1 (2008).Google Scholar

¹² It should be added that the principle of immovability that had been granted to sitting judges in 1883 did not concern the “magistrature coloniale” who were put on the direct disciplinary jurisdiction of the local “Gouverneur” and of the Prosecution Office (Parquet): see Jean-Paul, Jean, Le statut du magistrat de l'entre-deux-guerres à 1958, Cahiers de la justice (2018).Google Scholar

¹³ On this experiment, the best account is: Simone Benvenuti, Il Consiglio superiore della magistratura francese. Una comparazione con l'esperienza italiana (2011).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Piana & Vauchez, supra note 3.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Article 84 indicates that “le Conseil supérieur de la magistrature assure, conformément à la loi, la discipline des magistrats, leur indépendance et l'administration des tribunaux judiciaires”.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Bancaud, Alain, Normalisation d'une innovation. Le Conseil supérieur de la magistrature sous la IVème République, 63-64 Droit et societe 371 (2006).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Boigeol, Anne, La formation professionnelle des magistrats: de l'apprentissage sur le tas à l'école professionnelle, 76-77 Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 49 (1989).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Unless specificied, translations are mine.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Bancaud, Alain, Le paradoxe de la gauche française au pouvoir: développement des libertés judicaires et continuité de la dépendance de la justice, 44-45 Droit et société 61 (2000).Google Scholar

²⁰ Mbongo, Pascal, La gauche au pouvoir et les libertes publiques (1981-1995) (1999); Agrikoliansky, Eric, 'Liberté, liberté chérie…': la gauche et la protection des libertés publiques dans les années 1970. Hypothèses sur la résurgence de la notion d'Etat de droit”, in Sur la portee sociale du droit: usages et legitimite du registre juridique (Liora Israël, Antoine Vauchez, Laurent Willemez eds., 2005).Google Scholar

²¹ Bancaud, Alain, supra note 19.Google Scholar

²² Vauchez, Antoine, Judicialization of Politics. Lessons and Questions for the case of the French Fifth Republic, in Law and the Formation of Modern Europe 96 (Mikael Madsen & Christopher Thornill eds., 2014).Google Scholar

²³ Marchetti, Dominique, Les révélations du journaliste d'investigation, 131 Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 30 (2000).Google Scholar

²⁴ Juger le politique. Entreprises et entrepreneurs critiques de la politique (Jean-Louis Briquet & Philippe Garraud eds., 2001).Google Scholar

²⁵ La fonction politique de la justice (Jacques Commaille, Martine Kaluszynski eds., 2007).Google Scholar

²⁶ Vauchez, Antoine, Pouvoir judiciaire, in Nouveau manuel de science politique (2nd ed. 2015).Google Scholar

²⁷ Salas, Denis, Le tiers pouvoir. Vers une autre justice (1998).Google Scholar

²⁸ Garapon, Antoine, Le gardien des promesses (1996).Google Scholar

²⁹ Vauchez, Antoine, Le juge, l'homme et la ‘cage d'acier'. La rationalisation de l'activité judiciaire à l'épreuve du ‘moment Outreau', in La justice au risque des profanes 27 (Hélène Michel et Laurent Willemez eds., 2007).Google Scholar

³⁰ Houillon, Philippe, Rapport fait au nom de la Commission d'enquěte chargée de rechercher les causes des dysfonctionnements de la justice dans l'affaire dite d'Outreau et de formuler des propositions pour éviter leur renouvellement, Assemblée nationale, June 2006.Google Scholar

³¹ Comité de réflexion et de proposition sur la modernisation et le rééquilibrage de la Vème République présidé par M. Edouard Balladur, Report to the president of the Republic 78 (October 29, 2007).Google Scholar

³² It should be remembered that in 1994, the president of the Republic asked the Conseil to meet in plenary session asking for advice; later on, the CSM spontaneously gathered in full composition a couple of times, thereby claiming to be a legitimate interlocutor of political power and of the judicial body.Google Scholar

³³ In terms of careers, there was little change except for prosecutors: while up until 2008, the CSM was entirely kept outside of the nomination of higher positions of prosecutors (ie the nominations decided in the framework of the Conseil des ministres), the reform introduced a compulsory yet non binding Opinion of nomination proposals from the CSM.Google Scholar

³⁴ Translated by the author. Original text: “Tout justiciable qui estime qu'à l'occasion d'une procédure judiciaire le concernant le comportement adopté par un magistrat dans l'exercice de ses fonctions est susceptible de recevoir une qualification disciplinaire peut saisir le Conseil supérieur de la magistrature”.Google Scholar

³⁵ On the conditions of admissibility (and rejection) of these claims, see Le Pogam, Michel, Le Conseil superieur de la magistrature 29–32 (2014).Google Scholar

³⁶ Data from the 2016 Report of the CSM, at 85.Google Scholar

³⁷ Boucobza, Isabelle, L'énigme de l'indépendance des juges en France, in Politique de l'independance (Bastien François, Antoine Vauchez eds., 2018).Google Scholar

³⁸ The Direction des services judiciaires is the directorate of the ministry of justice in charge of all organizational/administrative matters related to tribunals and magistrates.Google Scholar

³⁹ It should also be said that courts’ presidents have retained an important role as they are the ones in charge of the yearly individual assessment of judges. More broadly, they have important administrative powers -in terms of organizing the daily allocation of cases and the overall organization of the court- that can constitute a threat to judges’ independence. See Garapon, Antoine & Epineuse, Harold, Judicial Independence in France, in Judicial Independence in Transition 273 (Anja Seibert-Fohr ed., 2012).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The commission d'avancement also decides over the recruitment of magistrates through derogatory procedures (a pathway which has been increasingly used to recruit magistrates over the past decade).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Cf. Michel Le Pogam, former member of the Conseil in his well documented book on the Conseil, supra note 35.Google Scholar

⁴² Louvel, Bertrand, Pour échapper à la suspicion, il faut modifier le système de nomination des juge, Le Monde (May 30, 2016).Google Scholar

⁴³ Data CSM report 2017, at 20-21.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ It should be said, however, that despite the repeated failures of these constitutional reforms, the institutional practice over the past decades has seen no nomination of prosecutors that had receive an “avis défavorable” from the CSM.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ It should be added that president Macron has announced during his campaign a profound constitutional reform of the role of prosecutors that would cut the transmission belt with government. Given the absence of the three-fifth majority in the two parliamentary assemblies required for constitutional revisions, the reform seems unlikely.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Conseil constitutionnel, Décision n° 2017-680 QPC (Dec. 8, 2017).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Piana & Vauchez, supra note 3.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See the results at http://www.union-syndicale-magistrats.org/web2/themes/fr/userfiles/fichier/reserves/elections/csm/csm2014_resultats.pdf.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ On judicial unionism in France, see the special issue Faut-il craindre le syndicalisme judiciaire, 3 Cahiers de la justice (2016).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ On these procedures that account for the recruitment of 26% of the magistrates, see http://www.gip-recherche-justice.fr/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/10-31-RF.pdf.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Up until then, the budget of the CSM was part of the general budget of the judiciary and its resources were therefore granted and decided over by the Ministry of justice (the head of the Direction des services judiciaires).Google Scholar

⁵² Bancaud, Alain, supra note 19.Google Scholar

⁵³ By many standards, the Conseil d'Etat is a ‘court of appeal’ for individual magistrates as they can appeal before it all individual decisions regarding issues of nomination, career, professional assessment, sanctions, etc.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Le Pogam, Michel, supra note 35, at 52-61.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Cour de cassation, Crim. (Dec. 9, 1981).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ CSM, decision S57 (Dec. 12, 1991), Recueil des décisions disciplinaires, la documentation française 243 (2004).Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Loi Organique of 22 July 2010.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Le Pogam, Michel, supra note 35, at 52-61.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ To that must be added the “deontological turn” that has touched the judiciary. In 2005, a Rapport of the Commission de réflexion sur l'éthique dans la magistrature (Commission Cabannes) was commissioned by the ministry of justice. In the reform of the judiciary that directly derived from the “Outreau affair” (Loi organique du 5 March 2007), the Parliament asked the CSM to write a Recueil des obligations déontologiques du magistrat. The volume that came out in 2010 and has been regularly revised ever since is not a Code; it provides mostly guidelines of what is a “normal professional behavior”. This has now become one of the prerogatives of the CSM. A doctrine has emerged around the “3 I” pilar: independence, impartiality and integrity to which the CSM has added “attention à autrui”, “discretion” and “reserve”. It was clearly part of an overall phenomenon of “responsabilisation” of public officials.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ On this, see Vauchez, Antoine & Willemez, Laurent, La justice face a ses reformateurs. Entreprises de modernisation et logiques de resistance (2007).Google Scholar

⁶¹ For an example, see the report from the liberal conservative think tank Institute Montaigne, Pour la justice (2004), http://www.institutmontaigne.org/publications/pour-la-justice.Google Scholar

⁶² Chelle, Elise, Une politique de récompense dans la haute magistrature: le cas de la prime de rendement, 78 Droit et societe 407 (2011).Google Scholar

⁶³ Lenoir, Remi, La parole est aux juges. Crise de la magistrature et champ journalistique, 101-102 Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 77 (1994).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ On this, see François, Bastien, Une demande politique de justice. Les Français et la justice, Rapport pour le GIP (1998).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Conseil supérieur de la magistrature, Les Français et leur justice. Restaurer la confiance (2008); Cretin, Laure, L'opinion des Français sur la justice, 125 Infostat (Jan. 2014).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Id. Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Ifop, Le regard des Français sur la justice, March 2017: https://www.village-justice.com/articles/IMG/pdf_114547_-_rapport.pdf.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ François, , supra note 64.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Id. Google Scholar