The supreme jurisdiction of the judiciary significantly expands the notion of civil party in terms of terrorist offenses. A decision that promises to be heavy with consequences, in a context marked by the succession of the trials of the different attacks.
Le Monde
The man who continued the truck with which the bombing of Nice was perpetrated on July 14, 2016, a woman having jumped on the beach located below the Promenade des Anglais, far beyond the point of ‘shutdown of the vehicle, or a person who attempted to master the author of dead stabs at Saint-Charles station, in Marseille, the 1 Er October 2017, can they be considered victims Of these attacks, while they were not directly targeted by the attackers? As many situations as the Court of Cassation had to examine and illustrate the thorny question of the distinction between “courageous witnesses”, “unhappy witnesses” and victims in the legal sense of the term of these large-scale terrorist attacks.
According to the Code of Criminal Procedure, the civil party constitution is normally reserved, on the one hand, to the direct victims of an offense, injured in their flesh or psychologically troubled after having had traumatic events, and, of On the other hand, the “victims by Ricochet”, bringing together bereaved loved ones and witnesses the sufferings of being loved. If this definition seems limpid at first glance, the violence of war scenes taking place on the street and the trauma experienced by the witnesses of the latter scrambling the borders of the victim’s legal concept. The recognition of the status of civil party gives the right to participate in the criminal trial of the accused and also opens access to the compensation process for the victims.
Question at the heart of the trial of the attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris and Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), the case law has already had the opportunity to pronounce on the fate of what the judges called “Unhappy witnesses”, these passers-by which, on the evening of 13-November, were on the sidewalk in front of the Paris terraces assaulted with shots. It was therefore decided that, having not been directly targeted by the shooting of the assault rifles, these people could not claim civil status.
Direct exposure criterion to the danger of Death
Decisions rendered by the Court of Cassation, Tuesday, February 15, partially call into question this analysis since they open to the “brave witnesses”, having attempted to neutralize the author of the attacks, and to the people being injured. By trying to find refuge the right to constitute civil part.
As the “unhappy witnesses”, these people have not been exposed directly and immediately to the risk of death sought by the terrorists, the weapon that has not been pointed on them. However, the Court of Cassation believes that post-traumatic stress they have experienced since is inseparable from the perpetrated attack.
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