Ordinance of 19 November 2025 Rewriting the Code of Criminal Procedure (Legislative Part)
AI-generated summary for informational purposes only. Not legal advice. See the original source for the authoritative text.
This ordinance undertakes a comprehensive rewrite of the legislative part of France's Code of Criminal Procedure (Code de procédure pénale), originally enacted in 1958. The rewrite is explicitly carried out on a 'droit constant' basis — meaning the underlying law is not substantively changed, only its drafting and structure are clarified and modernised. The reform was driven by decades of accumulated amendments that had rendered the code increasingly unreadable and internally inconsistent. Judicial practitioners, legal professionals, and citizens alike had long called for a structural overhaul to restore the code's coherence and accessibility. The ordinance reorganises the plan of the code, simplifies convoluted provisions, and harmonises terminology throughout, without altering the legal rights or obligations currently in force. This is a purely formal legislative exercise — a consolidation and clarification effort rather than a policy change. The new version of the code is intended to serve as the authoritative text going forward, replacing the layered, patchwork version that had evolved since 1958. Implementation of this rewrite will require judges, lawyers, and legal educators to update their references to the new article numbering and structure.
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Key Changes
- Full rewrite of the legislative part of the Code of Criminal Procedure (in force since 1958), effective from the date of publication on 20 November 2025
- Restructuring and reorganisation of the code's plan to improve readability and internal coherence
- Simplification and harmonisation of terminology and drafting throughout the entire legislative text
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Obligations
What this law requires
Adopt and implement the new article numbering and structural organization of the Code of Criminal Procedure as set forth in this ordinance, replacing references to the previous numbering system
Update legal references, citations, and cross-references from the old Code of Criminal Procedure numbering to the new numbering structure established by this ordinance
Revise legal education materials, course curricula, and training resources to reflect the new plan and article structure of the Code of Criminal Procedure
Treat the rewritten Code of Criminal Procedure established by this ordinance as the authoritative legislative text going forward, superseding the previous consolidated version