Parlement
Parlements (pronounced
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in
French) in
ancien régime France were political institutions that developed out of the older king's council. In the
thirteenth century, judicial functions were added. Originally, there was only the
Parlement of Paris, born out of the king's council (
Latin:
Curia Regis) in
1307, and located inside the medieval royal palace, now the
Paris Hall of Justice. The jurisdiction of the
Parlement of Paris covered the entire kingdom. In
1443, following the turmoil of the
Hundred Years' War, King
Charles VII of France granted
Languedoc its own
parlement by establishing the
Parlement of
Toulouse, the first
parlement outside of Paris, whose jurisdiction extended over the most part of southern France. From
1443 until the
French Revolution several other
parlements were created in some provinces of France. However, the
Parlement of Paris had the largest jurisdiction of all the
parlements, covering the major part of northern and central France, and was simply known as "the
Parlement".
All the
parlements could issue regulatory decrees for the application of royal edicts or of customary practices; they could also refuse to register laws that they judged contrary to fundamental law or simply as being untimely. Membership in those courts was generally bought from the royal authority; and such positions could be made hereditary by payment of the tax to the King (
la Paulette).
In theory,
parlements were not
legislative bodies. However, they had the duty to record all royal
edicts and
laws. Some, especially the
Parlement de Paris, gradually acquired the habit of refusing to register legislation with which they disagreed until the king held a
lit de justice or sent a
lettre de cachet to force them to act. Furthermore, the
parlements could pass
arrêts de réglement, which were laws that applied within their jurisdiction.
In the years immediately before the
French Revolution, their extreme concern to preserve
ancien régime institutions of
bourgeois and
noble privilege prevented France from carrying out miscellaneous reforms, especially in the area of taxation, even when those reforms had the support of theoretically
absolute monarchs.
This behavior is one of the reasons why, since the
French Revolution, French courts have been forbidden by Article 5 of the
French civil code to create law and act as legislative bodies, their only mandate being to interpret the law. France, through the Napoleonic Code, was at the origin of the modern system of
civil law in which precedents are not as powerful as in countries of
common law. Since then, Courts have gradually regained some power, but it is still controversial whether unelected magistrates should gain too much power.
In civil trials, judges had to be paid
épices (literally "spices" – fees) by the parties. Civil justice was out of reach of most of the population, except the most wealthy and well connected.
Regarding criminal justice, the proceedings were markedly archaic. Judges could order suspects to be
tortured in order to extract confessions, or induce them to reveal the names of their
accomplices: there existed the
question ordinaire ("ordinary questioning"), the ordinary form of torture, and the
question extraordinaire ("extraordinary questioning"), with increased brutality. There was little
presumption of innocence, if the suspect was a mere poor
commoner. The death sentence could be pronounced for a variety of crimes, including mere
theft; depending on the crime and the social class of the victim, death could be by
decapitation with a
sword (for nobles),
hanging (for most crimes by commoners), the
breaking wheel (for some heinous crimes by commoners), and even
burning at the stake (for
heresy, or advocacy of
atheism). Some crimes, such as
regicide, exacted even more horrific punishment.
Judicial torture and cruel methods of executions were abolished in 1788 by King
Louis XVI.
[Abstract of dissertation "'Pour savoir la verite de sa bouche': The Practice and Abolition of Judicial Torture in the Parlement of Toulouse, 1600-1788" by Lisa Silverman.]In current
French language usage,
parlement means
parliament.
*
Parliament of France*
Belgian Federal Parliament*
Walloon Parliament*
Parliament of Canada
