The creation of the institution of the departmental criminal court and the ideologisation of the process of justice reform in France

The Justice Programming Act of 23 March 2019 created a new judicial body in France, the departmental criminal court, which is composed of five professional judges and, instead of a court of assizes, hears crimes committed without recidivism and punishable by either 15 or 20 years of imprisonment. The judicial reform was hastily adopted without the support of either the judiciary or the lawyers. It is fully part of the global processes of justice reform, which, in particular, has resulted in its atomisation and “de-statization”.