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The French Prosecutor As Judge. The Carpenter’S Mistake?, Mathilde Cohen
The French Prosecutor As Judge. The Carpenter’S Mistake?, Mathilde Cohen
Mathilde Cohen
In France as elsewhere, prosecutors and their offices are seldom seen as agents of democracy. A distinct theoretical framework is itself missing to conceptualize the prosecutorial function in democratic states committed to the rule of law. What makes prosecutors democratically legitimate? Can they be made accountable to the public? Combining democratic theory with original qualitative empirical data, my hypothesis is that in the French context, prosecutors’ professional status and identity as judges determines to a great extent whether and how they can be considered democratic figures.
The French judicial function is defined more broadly than in the United States, …
The Rule Of Law As The Rule Of Reasons, Mathilde Cohen
The Rule Of Law As The Rule Of Reasons, Mathilde Cohen
Mathilde Cohen
This paper argues that in contemporary legal thinking, the concept of the rule of law has become inseparable from the idea that legal decision-makers should give reasons to justify their decisions. Yet, how far can the concept of the rule the law be understood as establishing a rule of reasons? I examine whether reason giving is necessarily connected with the rule of law in the sense that a legal system would not conform to the rule of law if its decisions were not supported by publicly articulated reasons. I proceed by arguing that the focus on reason giving vindicates both …