Hi there!
I'll continue my past week.
So, when I quit the Chamber with something quite nasty like proud and vengeance in my veins, I wasn't finished yet for this particular town. I still had to play postman (which I successfully did, after having crossed half the city to go to the other courts of Justice, that contain the lawyers mailboxes) and to make appeal of a decision against a client that had been caught driving 40 km/hour over the limit. To do that last one, I had to go to the Police Parquet, which I found very easily. Actually, the people in there were extremely kind, seeing I was just a junior sent at all corners of the country. They registered me, called me "Maître" (as you call lawyers here) and smiled gently all the time.
After such a good morning, I just had to go back to the office. I spent the afternoon reading files, writing conclusions, et caetera.
As I had to go back to the same other city the day after, I decided to ride just after work and to sleep by my lover, who lives there, not so far from the Law Courts. I had a nice evening, and I hadn't to wake up too early, which is very good indeed.
So, Wednesday, my case was fixed at 9.30 before the Youth Chamber of the Court of Appeal. Of course, I arrived at 9 am, and waited patiently in the room (which I found far easier than the day before). I ran into a girl I knew from the university, and we chatted whispering of our experiences while waiting our turns. I asked her to replace my adversary, who of course wouldn't come, because we just had to give an agreement to the judge, so she could approve it. At 9.28, there wasn't any soul in the room except for me and my friend, so the president asked me (we had been presented at the beginning of the audience) what I was there for. When I explained and approached to give my sheet of paper with our signatures and the agreement on it, she began to shout at me that she couldn't take any decision without the Procureur, who was obviously not there. I became pink and clutched my teeth, waiting for her to calm down. I didn't know there HAD to be the Procureur for a simple agreement, but evidently, yes, so I'll remember that all my life. She was also very upset, because she saw my cas wasn't due to come before 9.30, and it was too early, and it was unbelievable I came before the right hour as the Procureur wasn't even there, and blablabla and blablabla. When she finally shut up, the huissier picked his phone and called for the Procureur, who of course arrived right at 9.30.
I thought my problems were finally over, and I fixed the president trying to avoid my friend's insisting glance, waiting for her to allow me to speak again. She finally asked to see my paper, but then began questionning me impatiently about the procedure that had been followed.
"- The first judgement, that is attacked here, has it been signified to the other part?"
When, at an audience, one part doesn't show up, the decision taken by the judge is called "par défaut", and the part who was there has the obligation to make a "signification" to the absent one to tell him what the judge has decided. If he doesn't, the absent part may ignore the judgement, which is why you've got to tell your adversary. In this case, my adversary had been absent the first time, but he had chosen, having heard of the decision, to make an appeal against it, which was why I stood there, very annoyed.
"- Your Honour, I'm not sure, this isn't my client."
Baaaaaad answer.
"- You know, Maître, I need to know that, because if it isn't, the appeal isn't regular and therefore I can't receive it.
- I think it hasn't, we had asked for some information to the client wishing to make the signification but I don't think..."
I wonder how many persons spend their Wednesday morning searching into a big file for a paper they aren't even sure they have, growing pink, wearing a lawyer's toga and frenetically avoiding the eyes of a Procureur, a judge, an old school's friend, a Greffier and an huissier. I had read the file, and I hadn't seen anything confirming we had signified to the adversary, but I wasd thinking that if you make an appeal, it means clearly that the adversary knows about the decision taken while he was absent. Thinking of it, I believe the judge thought it was ME making the appeal against the absent part, because after a moment, she stopped harrassing me with the question and asked for the Procureur's opinion. He smiled broadly at me and my friend (not knowing that she wasn't the adversary, but just a nice colleague who replaced an absent one) and said he was very, very happy when he could hear that both parents were on the same page for the best interest of their child. It ended like that, me moaning "thanks" and rushing out of the room, and then going back to my city, still angry with myself.
It wasn't the end of my marvellous trips around the country. On Thursday, I had to go elsewhere, in a city I hadn't ever seen, to play mailman again, introduce a Youth request and consulting a criminal file that promised to be as fat as my arm's length. On a normal day, it should have taken me like thirty minutes to get there ; but my trip was a real nightmare.
First of all, I like to start my day with a cup of tea. Of course, it obliges you to go more often to the toilet, but as I was in my car only for half an hour, it didn't seem bad. It was. I was barely on the road that a big fog fell on me. This isn't a joke! I had never seen such a thing in all my life. Well, perhaps in movies, but this was real life and I was driving very slow to be sure not to have an accident. Anyway, I was stopped after twenty minutes, as hundreds cars in the same situation. We were moving at about 8 km/hour, and I had to pee really badly. We were so slow I wondered if I couldn't stop my car, hurry to the bushes just on the side of the road, pee and come back running, but I didn't dare. After an hour, we finally saw what had caused the traffic jam : two cars werestacked on each other, and the one under was very, very flat. After I passed tham, I was quite shocked for several minutes. The driver of the car beneath was certainly dead or highly injured, and the position of the two cars was just amazing. Thanking my consciousness for having driven so slow, I was finally able to get out of the road at a gas station to use their toilets, which was very relieving.
I arrived before the Law Courts of the city two hours later than previewed. I went to the Greffe civil to give them my request, but they turned me down :
"- For Youth cases, the Youth Greffe is in the other building, you've got to head back to the streets, walk five minutes around the building, then enter the Police door, pass the Bloc A, enter the Bloc B, go on your right, right, left, and there it is."
Ten minutes later, I proudly handed my request to the Youth Greffe, freezing.
"- Sorry, Maître, but the requests have to be dropped at the Financial Service.
- Oooh, no... And where is it?
- Do you see the Greffe civil?"
Oh, yes. I had to go right in front of the first service I had been, which annoyed me very much. As my request was finally done, I had to check on the criminal file at the Criminal Greffe. I found it easily, for it is in the same room than the lawyer's mailboxes. It's so small in there you can barely enter with more than three persons at the same time. I found a tiny place on a microscopic table and took notes from the files during one hour and a half before going back to the office. Fortunately, the road was faster and better than at 9 am.
In the afternoon, I had to go to our first CAPA lessons. CAPA is for "Certificat d'Aptitude à la Profession d'Avocat" ; which means that when you finally finish your horrible studies you have to study further to become a good lawyer. The four hours were most annoying, and I got back home as tired as if I had taken a marathon.
I woke up on Friday thinking that this would be a great day, for at 4.30 pm we could with my boss and our family go to the drink for the opened doors day of the Law Courts. This kind of event is set up so the citizens can enter the Courts without being too much impressed, meet lawyers, ask for law advices and drink champaign with judges, but I don't actually think there was many non-judicial persons at the reception.
I was due to hold the welcome desk for an hour with other pupils. We chatted of our horrible weeks, of the annoying lessons of the day before, of our bosses, and it was very distracting, given that it was Friday and that we had left our offices sooner than usual. But the rest of the evening wasn't very attracting. When I said goodbye and sat in my car, I saw it was only 7 pm... I must be too young to appreciate all those fashionable gatherings.
Then, I spent my weekend waiting for the police to come and confirm I live in my studio, so I can vote and pay taxes in this town and not in my old one. They never came, but that's another story...
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