“The paralysis of the National Assembly is a boon for criminal law”

EWhat if this five-year term was finally that of legislative sobriety? Constrained by the absence of an absolute majority, the government and the deputies of the majority will have to do less, to the delight of the law. The paralysis of the National Assembly is a godsend for criminal law, because, for twenty-five years, laws in criminal matters – but civil law is not to be outdone – have followed one another frantically.

The non-exhaustive list is dizzying: law of 17 June 1998 on the prevention and repression of sexual offences; law of June 15, 2000 strengthening the protection of the presumption of innocence and the rights of victims (Guigou law); law of September 9, 2002 on orientation and programming for justice (Perben 1 law); law of March 9, 2004 on the adaptation of justice to developments in crime (Perben 2 law); law of 12 December 2005 on the treatment of recidivism in criminal offences; law of 10 August 2007 strengthening the fight against recidivism by adults and minors (introduction of minimum penalties); penitentiary law of 24 November 2009 (Dati law); law of December 6, 2013 on the fight against tax fraud and major economic and financial crime; law of 15 August 2014 on the individualisation of penalties and strengthening the effectiveness of criminal sanctions (Taubira law); law of 27 February 2017 reforming the statute of limitations in criminal matters; law of 3 August 2018 on the fight against sexual and gender-based violence; law of 23 March 2019 on programming 2018-2022 and reform for justice; law of 30 July 2020 aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence; law of 24 December 2020 on the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, environmental justice and specialized criminal justice; law of April 21, 2021 aimed at protecting minors from sexual crimes and offenses and incest; law of 24 January 2022 on criminal liability and internal security…

A management tool

Some titles even take note of this litany, such as the law of 17 May 2011 on simplifying and improving the quality of law. Others evoke, as an acknowledgment of failure, the consequences of this legislative crisis, such as the law from December 22 2021 for the trust in the judicial institution.

The penal code received seventy-one versions between 2017 and 2021, almost as many (seventy) as between 1994, the year of its entry into force, and 2004. If the figure may seem crazy, it is better not to look at the evolution over time of the code of criminal procedure at the risk of finding oneself in trouble. It has known fifty-four versions between its creation in 1957 and the year 1974, while this now represents a single year of modifications (fifty-five versions in 2010, fifty-six in 2016 and fifty-three in 2021) .

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