Criminal defence of accused persons and representation of victims in the most serious cases: homicide, violence, sexual assault and rape, trafficking, organised crime and terrorism. The firm acts at every stage, from police custody to the Assize Court and the special Assize Court, and before the Cour de cassation.
In these cases, procedure often decides the outcome before the merits do. An interview taken without the person’s rights having been notified, a search carried out outside the legal framework, an interception or geolocation authorised beyond what the law allows, an expert report ordered without respect for the adversarial principle: each of these acts can be annulled, and with it the evidence that flows from it. Litigation on procedural nullities is one of the constant strands of the firm’s work, in its cases as in its publications.
One feature governs these cases: the legal classification adopted at the outset determines the regime applicable to everything that follows. Where the facts fall within organised crime or terrorism, the special procedure applies: special investigative techniques, jurisdiction of the specialised interregional courts, the National Prosecutor’s Office against Organised Crime or the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office, and an Assize Court composed of professional judges. Challenging that classification, from the opening of the investigation, is a defence issue in its own right.
Cases are handled in French and in English.
Police custody, the search and the first interview take place early, often before the expert reports have delivered their conclusions. The chronology of events is then rebuilt from statements, and what is said without preparation weighs on the rest of the case. The firm has published analyses of the reflexes to adopt in police custody and of the question, decided by the European Court of Human Rights, of the phone unlock code requested by investigators.
Any breach of the forms prescribed on pain of nullity or of substantial formalities may be sanctioned, provided that it has harmed the interests of the party relying on it (Article 802 of the Code of Criminal Procedure). During the judicial investigation, the application for annulment is brought before the Investigating Chamber, within time limits which, once expired, cure the proceedings of their defects. Before the criminal court, objections of nullity must be raised before any defence on the merits (Article 385). The nullity of an act entails that of the acts deriving from it: an annulled period of police custody takes with it the statements taken during it, and an annulled search takes with it the seizures.
No. Nullity requires that the irregularity harmed the interests of the party relying on it, and that it be raised within the time limits and before the competent court. Once those time limits have passed, the proceedings are cured.
The departmental criminal court, composed of five professional judges, tries at first instance serious crimes punishable by fifteen or twenty years’ imprisonment. The Assize Court, with its lay jury, tries the most serious crimes and all criminal appeals.
A special procedure: special investigative techniques, jurisdiction of specialised courts and prosecution offices, and extended regimes for police custody and searches. Challenging that classification is a line of defence from the investigation stage onwards.
Through revision, where there is a new fact, or through review, where the European Court of Human Rights has found that the conviction breached the Convention. The firm acts on both routes.
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Email: mehdy@kadri-avocat.com
