Institutions

The Court of Cassation

The supreme court of the ordinary courts. It rules on the law, not on the facts: it does not retry the case, it reviews the judgment.

In brief

Seated in Paris, quai de l'Horloge. Six chambers: three civil, one commercial, financial and economic, one social, one criminal — plus the mixed chamber and the full court.
It quashes (with or without remand) or dismisses. It does not re-examine the facts, which are assessed in the sovereign discretion of the lower courts.
Filtering (Art. 1014 CPC): a restricted panel may dismiss an appeal that is inadmissible or “manifestly not such as to lead to cassation”.
2024 figures (annual report): 20,243 appeals lodged, 11,471 judgments delivered; 53.1% of the judgments ruling on the grounds of appeal are decisions without specific reasoning.
Publication: a judgment published in the Bulletin (marked “B”) has an asserted doctrinal scope; an unpublished judgment settles the dispute without the Court recognising it as having the value of a principle.

The Court of Cassation does not say who is right: it says whether the court of appeal correctly applied the rule. If it quashes, it remands the case to another court of appeal, which retries it. If it dismisses, the judgment challenged becomes final.

Filtering has grown considerably: more than one judgment in two today dismisses the appeal without detailed reasoning. This is not an endorsement of the judgment challenged — it is a finding that no ground justifies examination. The nuance is essential when reading a non-admission decision such as the one delivered on 10 May 2002 in the Antibes case.

Lastly, publication status matters: the judgments that set case law — the judgment of 31 January 1995 on the termination clause implemented in bad faith, the “Les Maréchaux” judgment of 10 July 2007 on good faith — are published in the Bulletin. An unpublished judgment does not have that authority.

Sources

External sources.

Court of Cassation — official website — Court of Cassation
Code of Civil Procedure, Article 1014 — Légifrance

Where this comes up in the case file

ArticleGood faith and the termination clause Document in the case fileCourt of Cassation — 10 May 2002 Document in the case fileSupplementary brief — Collorafi

Other glossary entries — Institutions

The European Court of Human Rights The court of appeal The commercial court The Court of Justice of the European Union The EUIPO The National Financial Prosecutor's Office

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