Rights and Limitations
The powers of French Police and Gendarmerie forces are constrained by statute law and jurisprudence. The rules of procedure depend on the stage of enquiry:
- Crimes committed in flagrante delicto, in which a suspect was found committing the crime, or pursued by witnesses, or found in possession of objects from the crime or other probable cause.
- Preliminary enquiries — it is unclear whether a crime, or which crime, has been committed, but there exist good reasons to believe this might be the case.
- Judicial information — an investigative magistrate (a judge, external to the police) supervises an enquiry on a case where it is certain, or at least very probable, that a crime has been committed.
In particular, outside of crimes in flagrante delicto, law enforcement forces may not conduct searches or arrests without a specific commission from the investigative magistrate.
Not all law-enforcement officers are capable of making full arrests or conducting searches; these powers are, by law, restricted to those have special legal qualifications (see next section).
Read more about this topic: Law Enforcement In France
Famous quotes containing the words rights and, rights and/or limitations:
“Crimes increase as education, opportunity, and property decrease. Whatever spreads ignorance, poverty and, discontent causes crime.... Criminals have their own responsibility, their own share of guilt, but they are merely the hand.... Whoever interferes with equal rights and equal opportunities is in some ... real degree, responsible for the crimes committed in the community.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.”
—Malcolm X (1925–1965)
“Much of what contrives to create critical moments in parenting stems from a fundamental misunderstanding as to what the child is capable of at any given age. If a parent misjudges a child’s limitations as well as his own abilities, the potential exists for unreasonable expectations, frustration, disappointment and an unrealistic belief that what the child really needs is to be punished.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)