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Le Droit se prête si bien au cinéma au travers de ces deux personnages spectaculaires que sont le juge et l'avocat, et leur sorte d'accessoire sans lesquels ils n'existeraient pas que sont le coupable, l'innocent, la victime, le voleur, etc. Des branches du Droit!footnote-2827, le pénal y est le plus chatoyant et l'on retrouve peu de notaires ou de tous les autres personnages que l'étudiant en Droit apprend à connaître.

Et précisément les professeurs de Droit qui enseignent cette immense matière sont presque absents des films. Le peu qu'ils y sont représentés est donc d'autant plus précieux.

Ainsi le film Just Cause, sorti en 1995, met en scène comme personnage principal, interprété par Sean Connery, Paul Amstrong, dans une histoire à rebondissements autour d'un jeune homme noir qui attend son exécution après sa condamnation pour avoir assassiner une petite fille atrocement, ce qu'il nie.

Sa grand-mère vient à une conférence où le professeur défend une position par principe hostile à la peine de mort, soulignant ce qu'il estime être la barbarie de l'électrocution, le nombre d'innocents exécutés et le pourcentage de noirs victimes d'erreurs judiciaires, débattant avec un collègue qui défend la peine de mort au nom des victimes ayant subi des atrocités.

L'on ne le revoit plus dans cette activité-là, où son titre de "professeur" lui est toujours donné, puisqu'il accepte le cas et commence alors pour lui une série d'aventures et de mésaventures.

Mais la représentation du professeur de droit est la suivante :

1. L'on comprend par la suite qu'il exerce à Harvard, qu'il a jadis aussi pratiqué, mais que depuis 25 ans il ne le fait plus. Il veut d'ailleurs refuser de prendre le cas car il considère qu'il ne "connait plus la réalité".

2. L'opposition est toujours faite entre lui, si savant dans les livres (qu'il se garde de citer) mais si ignorant des faits, en général et en particulier, le cas s'étant déroulé dans une petite ville du Sud des Etats-Unis.

L'on retrouve dans ce film l'idée commune que les professeurs de droit sont des sortes d'ânes savants, inaptes à comprendre vraiment ce qu'est la vie, par exemple qui sont les meurtriers et qui sont les victimes, qualifications pour lesquelles du sens commun est préférable (incarné par une institutrice) mais dont il est dépourvu, de par sa science juridique et de par sa classe sociale.

L'on retrouve ici sous ce personnage du "professeur de droit" la question du savant, ici le savant en droit, à comprendre les situations, à les reconstituer et à les qualifier, l'idée - fortement américaine - semblant être que l'enfermement dans un amphithéatre, ne sortant que pour faire des conférences tranchées, ne rendant peu apte.

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► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, , F. Ancel, N. Roret, "Les juges vont être de plus en plus présents dans le droit de la compliance" ("Judges will be more and more involved in Compliance Law"), interview with Olivia Dufour, Actu-Juridique, 1st March 2023.

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💬read the interview (in French)

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► Presentation of the interview by the journal (in French) : "À l’instigation du professeur Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, l’École nationale de la magistrature (ENM) a proposé pour la première fois début février une formation en compliance à destination des magistrats et des avocats. François Ancel, conseiller la Cour de cassation, Nathalie Roret, avocate et directrice de l’ENM et Marie-Anne Frison-Roche plaident d’une seule voix pour le renforcement du rôle des acteurs judiciaires dans la compliance."

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► Questions asked (in French): 

• D’où est venue l’idée d’aborder ce droit en cours d’émergence qui semble encore très confidentiel ?

• En effet, on croit souvent savoir ce qu’est la compliance, en la confondant avec la conformité, pouvez-vous expliquer ce qui les distingue ?​​

• On constate, en lisant le programme de la formation, que toutes les branches du droit sont concernées par la compliance depuis le droit des sociétés jusqu’au pénal en passant par les contrats et la responsabilité. Pouvez-vous nous donner des exemples ?​

• Comment se redistribuent les rôles entre les avocats, les juges et les entreprises dans cette nouvelle configuration qu’est la compliance ?​

• En quoi est-ce important pour les magistrats d’appréhender ce nouvel univers ?​

• Ces transformations sont-elles cantonnées à la compliance ou peuvent-elles sortir de son champ ?​

• Par exemple qu’en est-il de la question très controversée du rôle de l’avocat à l’égard du juge ?​

• Avez-vous constaté lors de cette formation une amélioration du dialogue entre les différents acteurs ?​

• Cette formation va-t-elle être instituée de manière permanente dans la formation des magistrats et des avocats ? Une autre manifestation est-elle prévue ?

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► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Les notaires "agents d'effectivité de la compliance"", interview with  Sarah Bertone, Solution Notaire Hebdo, 9 February 2023.

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💬read the interview (in French)

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► Presentation of the interview by the journal (in French): "Souvent envisagée comme un ensemble des processus visant à s’assurer du respect de certaines réglementations et/ou valeurs éthiques par les professionnels, la compliance est aujourd’hui encore mal appréhendée. Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, professeur de droit, spécialisée en droit de la régulation et de la compliance, nous explique en quoi le notariat trouve pourtant toute sa place dans cette démarche."

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► Questions asked (in French): 

• Quelle conception de la compliance doit-on adopter pour être efficace ? 

• En quoi ces organisations sont-elles clés ?

• Concrètement, puisque ces organisations anciennes se révèlent si adéquates, ont-elles besoin de s’adapter ?

• Ne faudrait-il pas que ces professions se modifient ?

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Instaurer l'insécurité juridique comme principe, outil de prévention des crises systémiques catastrophiques totales" ("Establishing legal uncertainty as a principle and a tool for preventing total catastrophic systemic crises"), in G. Gerqueira, H. Fulchiron et N. Nord (eds.), Insécurité juridique : l'émergence d'une notion ?, Société de législation comparée, coll. "Colloques", vol. 53, 2023, pp. 153-167. 

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📝read the article (in French)

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🚧read the bilingual Working Papier which is the basis of the conference and this article

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🎤watch the conference of March 22, 2021 that took place in the Cour de cassation (French Court de cassation) and for which this reflection was globally led

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► English Summary of the article: "whatever it takes". In 2015, Mario Draghi used this formula to aim for the defence of the European currency, when the Euro was in danger of collapsing under the dance of the speculators who would be enriched by its collapse. Rarely has a formula been more violently political and more strongly prescriptive. It contributed to his being dubbed "Super Mario", as in the video game. The formula was used again in 2020 by the Président de la République Française (President of the French Republic) in the face of the financial turmoil caused by the health crisis that led to similar calculations. It goes beyond the mere "financial cost". With this formula, the President of the European Central Bank stated that the economic crisis in Europe was such that the institution would do everything in its power to put an end to it, without any limits; that all those who, by their behaviour, even supported by their legal prerogatives, in this case the speculators, because they were destroying the economic and financial system, would come up against this and would themselves be swept away by the Central Bank because the latter's mission, in that it is absolutely to safeguard the Euro itself, would prevail "quoi qu'il en coûte" ("whatever the cost"). At one point, the master stood up. If the royal position is the seated position, when he listens and judges, it is by rising that he shows his acceptance of also being the master, because he is in charge of more and will use everything to win.

More broadly, we might consider drawing up a positive concept of legal uncertainty (which is bound to please the Hegelians), increasing legal certainty: this would make it possible to associate a clearer legal regime with the hypotheses of legal uncertainty. Indeed, rather than sweeping Law under the carpet, which explains many of the tensions between the Conseil constitutionnel (French Constitutional Council) and the Conseil d'État (Council of State) on the one hand, and the legislator and the government on the other, concerning the "État d'urgence" ("State of emergency"), we could set out the conditions in which legal uncertainty makes it possible to set aside or limit rules.

The idea proposed is therefore that in "extraordinary situations", legal uncertainty would be a dimension, or even a principle which would be admissible. And developing this first point, it is proposed that the hypothesis of an "economic crisis" justifies a dimension, or even a principle of "legal uncertainty". But this first assertion needs to be tested. Is an economic crisis, a concept that needs to be defined, if it is to have such a major reversal effect, such an extraordinary 'situation'? Furthermore, to deal with this extraordinary situation constituted by an 'economic crisis', how much legal uncertainty would be legally acceptable, or even legally claimed? Could we even conceive of a reversal of principle that would bring applicable Law to an economic crisis under the aegis of legal uncertainty? In such a case, the question that then arises is to determine the conditions and criteria for emerging from the economic crisis, or even to determine the elements of perspective of an economic crisis, which could justify in advance the admission of an injection of legal uncertainty. Above all, Law has control over the future.

The economic crisis should therefore be legally defined as an exceptional situation, before stressing that Regulation and Compliance Law, because on the one hand we move from crisis to crisis and on the other hand the whole system aims to avoid and manage the future crisis in advance or to exclude it; this is particularly true of health and climate issues (the way the health crisis was managed was to 'decree' that the State should initiate an economic crisis), which means that legal insecurity is no longer seen as a distant exception, a failure to be combated, but as a lever that can be used to influence the future.

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► Full Reference: Ancel, F. & Frison-Roche, M.A., Droit de la compliance ("Compliance Law", French National School for the Judiciary (Ecole nationale de la magistrature - ENM), 

This teaching is given in French.

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► Presentation of the Teaching: The two-day session is designed for magistrates and practicing lawyers who are not necessarily specialized, to enable them, based on concrete cases, to understand the issues, objectives, and methods of compliance mechanisms in companies, including the increasing judicialization and the supranational dimension strengthen, modifying the office of the judge and the role of lawyers.

The analysis is made from the angle of Civil Law (contract, tort), Company Law, Labor Law and Criminal Law, but also governance, financial markets, regulatory, climate and digital issues.

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► Organisation of the Teaching: this teaching is open to all judicial members and lawyers. Enrollments are made at the French National School for the Judiciary.

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► Full reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Ajuster par la nature des choses le Droit processuel au Droit de la Compliance" ("Adjusting by the nature of things General Procedural Law to Compliance Law"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2023, p. 251-262. 

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📝read the article (in French)

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🚧read the bilingual Working Paper which is the basis of this article, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks

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📕read a general presentation of the book, La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, in which this article is published

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► The principal elements of this articles had been presented during the scientific manifestation held on September 23, 2021, at Dauphine University in Paris, coorganised by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and the Institute Droit Dauphine. 

In the book this article is placed in the chapter II about the General Procedural Law in the Compliance Law.  

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): Procedural law is an invention, essentially due to professor Motulsky, going well beyond the gain that one always has in comparing types of procedures with each other. As he asserted, there is Natural Law in General Procedural Law, in that as soon as there is the Rule of Law Principle there cannot be, whatever the "procedure", even the "process" such and such way of doing things: for example, to decide, to seize the one who decides, to listen before deciding, to contest the one who has decided.

General Procedural Law therefore depends on the nature of things. However, Compliance Law organizes things in a new way. Therefore, both the simple and iron principles of General Procedural Law creep in where we do not expect them at first sight, because there is no judge, this character around whom ordinary procedures fit together. The principles of General Procedural Law are essential in companies. Even if the regulations do not breathe a word about it, it is up to the Judges, in particular the Supreme Courts, to recognize this nature of things because on this effect of nature that  General Procedural Law is built: when compliance mechanisms oblige companies to strike, General Procedural law must oblige, even in the silence of the texts, to arm those who can be hit, even stand up against devices that would set aside too much these defenses that are easily considered contrary to efficiency (I).

But because it is a question of making room for this nature of the things of which the Rule of Law Principle entrusts the custody to the Judge and the Lawyer, the General Procedural Law must also adjust itself to what the extraordinary new branch of Law Compliance Law is. Indeed, Compliance Law is extraordinary in that it expresses the political pretention to act now so that the future will not be catastrophic, by detecting and preventing the realization of systemic risks, or even that it is better, by building effective equality or real concern for others. Because it is the Monumental Goals that defines this new branch of Law, a disputed systemic issue, possibly disputed by several parties before a judge, the procedural principles used by the court must be broadened considerably: they must then include civil society and the future (II).

General Procedural Law thus naturally acquires an even more place than in the classic branches of Law since on the one hand it imposes itself outside of trials, particularly in companies and on the other before the courts it involves people who had hardly any place to speak and thinks themselves, especially the systems entering the "causes" of Compliance now debated before the Judge.

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Lignes de force de l'ouvrage La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance" ("Main lines of the book La juridictionnalisation de la compliance"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche (ed.), La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2023, p. 1-28. 

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► This article constitutes the first part of the Introduction of the book; its access is free⤵️ 

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📕read a general presentation of the book, La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, in which this article is published

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): This free access article ⤵️explains firstly the general purpose of the book and secondly how the book is structured in 4 parts.

Then, thirdly and following the table of contents, this article takes up in a few lines each of the contributions.

This is how the "main lines" of the book La juridictionnalisation de la compliance ("The Juridictionnalisation of Compliance") become even clearer

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🔓read this article in full text (in French) ⤵️

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► Full Reference: M.-A. Frison-Roche, "Le jugeant-jugé. Articuler les mots et les choses face à l'éprouvant conflit d'intérêts" ("The Judge-Judged. Articulating words and things in the face of the testing conflict of interest"), in M.-A. Frison-Roche, (ed.), La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, coll. "Régulations & Compliance", Journal of Regulation & Compliance (JoRC) and Dalloz, 2023, p. 59-80. 

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📝read the article (in French)

____

🚧read the bilingual Working Paper which is the basis of this article, with additional developments, technical references and hyperlinks

____

📕read a general presentation of the book, La juridictionnalisation de la Compliance, in which this article is published

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► Summary of the article (done by the Journal of Regulation & Compliance): Since the topic of this article is part of a chapter devoted to the Company established as Prosecutor and Judge of itself by Compliance Law, chapter aiming to use the relevant qualifications, it is appropriate therefore to worry about the adjustment of words and things, of the way in which the relationship between ones and the others evolve, and of the more particular question of knowing if this evolution is radical or not when one speaks of "judge ".

because "judging" is a word that the Law has disputed with other disciplines, but that it has appropriated not so much to confer more powers on those who act in its name, for example that who supervise and punish, but on the contrary to impose limits, since to the one who judges it has put the chains of the procedure under foot, thus making bearable for the other the exercise of such a power. Therefore, those who want the power to judge would often want to not have the title, because having de jure the title of judge is being subject to the correlated regime, it is to be submitted to procedural correctness.

It is therefore to better limit that the Law sees who judges, for obliging this so-powerful character to the procedure. But the Law also has the power to appoint a judge and to fix the contours of all the characters in the trial. He usually does it with clarity, distinguishing the ones of the others, not confusing them. This art of distinction has constitutional value. Thus, not only the one who judges must be named "judge" but the procedural apparatus which goes with this character, and which constitutes a way of doing things and fundamental rights, are not "granted" by kindness or in a second step: it is a block. If you didn't want to have to endure procedural rights, you didn't have to want to be a judge. Admittedly, one could conclude that the procedure would therefore have become "substantial"; by this elevation, it is rather a fashion of saying that the procedure would no longer be a "servant": it is a kind of declaration of love for the procedure, as long as one affirms that at the acts of judging , or investigating, or prosecuting, are "naturally" attached the procedural rights for the one who is likely to be the object of these powers.

Compliance Law, in search of allies to achieve the Monumental Goals for the aims of which it was instituted, will require, or even demand, private companies to go and seek themselves, in particular through investigations. internal or active vigilance on others, for finding facts likely to be reproached to them. Compliance Law will also require that they prosecute those who have committed these acts. Compliance La will again demand that they sanction the acts that people have committed in their name.

This is clearly understood from the point of view of Ex Ante efficiency. The confusion of roles is often very efficient since it is synonymous with the accumulation of powers. For example, it is more efficient that the one who pursues is also the one who instructs and judges, since he knows the case so well... Besides, it is more efficient that he also elaborates the rules, so he knows better than anyone the "spirit" of the texts. This was often emphasized in Regulatory Law. When everything is Information and risk management, that would be necessary ... But all this is not obvious.

For two reasons, one external and the other internal.

Externally, the first reason is that it is not appropriate to "name" a judge who is not. This would be too easy, because it would then be enough to designate anyone, or even to do it oneself to appropriate the regime that goes with it, in particular for obtain a so-called legitimate power for obtaining that others obey even though they are not subordinate or from them they transmit information, even though they would be  competitors: it would then be necessary to remember that only the Law is able to appoint judge ; in this new Compliance era, companies would be judges, prosecutors, investigators!  Maybe, if the Law says it, but if it didn't, it would be necessary to come back to this tautology ... But are we in such a radicalism? Moreover, do judges have "the prerogative" of judgment and the Law has not admitted this power for companies to judge for a long time? As soon as the procedure is there in Ex Ante and the control of the judge in Ex Post?

The second reason, internal to the company, situation on which the article focuses, is that the company investigates itself, judges itself, sanctions itself. However, the legal person expressing its will only through its organs, we underline in practice the difficulties for the same human being to formulate grievances, as he/she is the agent of the legal person, addressed to the natural person that he/she himself/herself is. The two interests of the two are not the same, are often opposed; how the secrets of one can be kept with respect to the other, represented by the same individual? ... It is all the mystery, even the artifice of legal personality that appears and we understand better that Compliance Law no longer wants to use this strange classical notion. Because all the rules of procedure cannot mask that to prosecute oneself does not make more sense than to contract with oneself. This conflict of interest is impossible to resolve because naming the same individual X then naming him/her Y, by declaring open the dispute between them does not make sense.

This dualism, which is impossible to admit when it comes to playing these functions with regard to corporate officers, can come back to life by setting up third parties who will carry secrets and oppositions. For example, by the designation of two separate lawyers for the human being agent and the human being representative of the legal person, each lawyer being able to have secrets for each other and to oppose each other. These spaces of reconstitution of the so "natural" oppositions in procedure between the one who judges and the one who is judged can also take the technological form of platforms: where there is no longer anyone, where the process has replaced the procedure, there is no longer any human judgment. We can thus see that the fear of conflicts of interest is so strong that we resign ourselves to saying that only the machine would be "impartial", a derisory conception of impartiality, against which it is advisable to fight.

This then leads to a final question: can the company claim to exercise the jurisdictional power to prosecute and judge and investigate without even claiming to be a prosecutor, an investigating judge, or a court? The company's advantage would be to be able to escape the legal regime that classical Law attaches to its words, mainly the rights of the defense and the rights of action for others, the principle of publicity of justice for everyone, which expresses the link between procedure and democracy. When Facebook said on June 12, 2021 "react" to the decision of May 5, 2021, adopted by what would only be an Oversight Board to decide "as a consequence" of a 2-year suspension of Donald Trump's account, the art of qualifications seem to be used in order to avoid any regime constraint.

But this art of euphemism is very old. Thus, the States, when they wanted to increase repression, presented the transformation of the system as a softening of it through the "decriminalization" of Economic Law, transferred from the criminal courts to the independent administrative agencies. The efficiency was greatly increased, since the guarantees of the Criminal Procedure ceased to apply. But 20 years later, Words found their way back to Things: under Criminal Law, slept the "criminal matter", which requires the same "Impartiality". In 1996, a judge once affirmed it and everything was changed. Let us therefore wait for what the Courts will say, since they are the masters of qualifications, as Article 12 of the French Code of Civil Procedure says, as Motulsky wrote it in 1972. Law has time.

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