Keyword: sentencing

Justice minister Christiane Taubira also plans to remove minimum sentence guidelines for repeat offenders, as opposition decry reforms as 'soft'.

The controversial introduction last year in France of citizen jurors to assist magistrates in trials of crimes which carry a punishment of between five and ten years is to be abandoned after an official report found the scheme, launched under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, to be ill-conceived, unmanageable and too costly,  Mediapart can reveal. Michel Deléan reports.

Men and women might be equal before criminal law, but not when it comes to their trial, where women are shown comparative leniency by sentencing judges. That’s the controversial conclusion of a three-year study by two French sociologists, Maxime Lelièvre and Thomas Léonard, who monitored the treatment of, and sentences meted out to, men and women in French courts. Michaël Hajdenberg looks at their findings and hears the conflicting reactions of magistrates and lawyers.