Strict Interpretation of Penal Law on Involuntary Homicide

Extract

[...] - The principle of legality of crimes and penalties is a fundamental principle of penal law enshrined in Articles and 8 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 in accordance with the principle of the necessity of crimes and penalties. Since the Constitutional Council's decision 'Freedom of Association' of 1971, it is a principle of constitutional value. - The principle of strict interpretation of penal law directly originates from the principle of legality of crimes and penalties. [...]

[...] - The penal judge must stick to the meaning given by the legislator to the penal law, he cannot make interpretations by analogy or by comparison and must stick to the strict meaning of the text. - The strict interpretation of penal law can be done by searching for a teleological interpretation only in the cases where the penal law is obscure, ambiguous or ambivalent. This ambivalence results from the decision of the Plenary Assembly of the Court of Cassation on the determination of the quality of victim of involuntary homicide and more particularly on the definition of the term of another person. [...]

[...] - In this judgment, the European jurisdiction concludes to the absence of recognition of a legal status to the fetus and does not recognize any infringement of the right to life guaranteed by Article 2 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (ECHR). It specifies that the fetus was protected by other judicial remedies. - The jurisdiction notes that there is nono consensus on the nature and status of the fetus » that this is at the level of member states or at the European level - Finally, the ECHR asserts a fundamental principle according to whichit is up to each member state to determine the point of commencement of life». [...]

[...] - The jurisdiction considers that one cannot assimilate the fetus to a human person, that it is not alive and that it does not constitute a person in itself since it does not distinguish itself from its mother. The unborn child has no legal personality and cannot be the victim of a penal offense. - The qualification of involuntary homicide is not applicable to the child who does not come to life. Thus, autrui cannot be a fetus according to this decision which appears as conform to the possibility of qualifying involuntary homicide and vis-à-vis European and national judicial decisions. [...]

[...] The Court of Cassation responds negatively to this problem and excludes the fetus from the qualification of person and makes a strict interpretation of the penal law and the term of 'autrui'. By this decision of June the Plenary Assembly sets a unifying principle of jurisprudence according to which the unborn child is not a person and cannot be qualified as a victim of penal offenses. In this decision, the Plenary Assembly of the Court of Cassation recalls the necessary application of the principle of strict interpretation of penal laws resulting from the principle of legality and makes an application of this principle to involuntary homicide in a restrictive manner, a decision that remains in line with the European legal order (II). [...]