French government unveils plan for justice shakeup

The French government outlined plans on Tuesday to shake up the country's Napoleonic justice system after a scandal triggered by a child abuse case that led to one of the France's worst miscarriages of justice in decades.
The plans, presented in cabinet by Justice Minister Pascal Clement, would increase protection for defendants, making it compulsory to film interviews in criminal investigations, and easier to challenge evidence and limiting preventive detention.
It would also make it easier to appeal to an ombudsman over failures in the justice system and would toughen disciplinary sanctions on judges in some circumstances.
Pressure for reform grew after 13 people were wrongly imprisoned when a trial of a child sex case in the northern town of Outreau ended in what President Jacques Chirac branded "an unprecedented judicial disaster".
"There has been a real awareness and a call for deep reform of the justice system," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told parliament. "The justice system will be reformed to match the expectations of France."
The scandal prompted a parliamentary inquiry, and added to a sense of unease in France about the functioning of many of the country's institutions and prompted a rare apology from Chirac.
Attention has been focused on the role of the examining magistrate after the inexperienced judge in the Outreau trial was blamed for his handling of the case which an appeal court ruled was based largely on made up or inconsistent evidence.
Clement's proposal, which must be approved by parliament, would leave the system in which investigations are conducted by all-powerful examining magistrates intact.
But it would move closer to the adversarial practice used in British and American courts by allowing suspects to challenge evidence and call their own expert witnesses.
One of the aspects of the Outreau case which most shocked the public was how powerless defendants were in the face of evidence from child witnesses and psychological experts. The new proposal would improve training and create teams of magistrates to ensure sensitive cases were not handled by judges working alone. But it would put off a decision on an amendment allowing disciplinary sanctions on judges for "intentional breach of penal procedures".