Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/119

Rh of writings which he shall have caused to be printed or published upon any matter whatsoever, unless he has intentionally instigated disobedience to the law, contempt for the constituted authorities, resistance to their acts, or any of the acts declared crimes or offences by the law.

Criticism upon the acts of the constituted authorities is permitted; but wilful calumnies against the probity of the public functionaries and the rectitude of their intentions in the exercise of their functions can be prosecuted by those who are the object of them.

Calumnies and injuries against any persons whatsoever relative to acts of their private life shall be punished upon their prosecutions.

18. No one can be tried either by civil or criminal process for written, printed, or published facts, unless it has been recognized and declared by a jury: 1st, whether there is an offence in the writing denounced; 2d, whether the prosecuted person is guilty.

19. There shall be for all the kingdom a single tribunal of cassation, established near the legislative body. Its functions shall be to pronounce

Upon petitions in cassation against the judgments rendered in the last resort by the tribunals

Upon petitions for transfer from one tribunal to another, on account of legitimate suspicion

Upon orders of judges and the charges of prejudice against an entire tribunal.

20. In matters of cassation the tribunal of cassation shall never be able to take jurisdiction over the facts of suits; but after having quashed the judgment rendered upon a proceeding in which the forms shall have been violated, or which shall contain an express contravention of the law, it shall remand the facts of the trial to the tribunal which ought to have jurisdiction therein.

21. When after two cassations, the judgment of the third tribunal shall be attacked by the same means as the first two, the question shall not be further discussed in the tribunal of cassation without having been submitted to the legislative body, which shall pass a decree declaratory of the law, to which the tribunal of cassation shall be required to conform.

22. Each year the tribunal of cassation shall be required