Section 6: Mandates and their execution

The examining magistrate may, depending on the case, issue a warrant for search, appearance, bringing in or arrest. The liberty and custody judge may issue a committal order. A search warrant may be issued for a person in respect of whom there are one or more plausible grounds for suspecting that he has committed or attempted to commit an offence. It may not be issued in respect of a person…

Every warrant shall specify the identity of the person against whom it is issued; it shall be dated and signed by the magistrate who issued it and shall bear his seal. Warrants for bringing, committing, arresting and searching shall also mention the nature of the acts imputed to the person, their legal classification and the applicable articles of law. The warrant to appear is served by a bailiff on the…

The warrants shall be enforceable throughout the territory of the Republic.

The examining magistrate shall immediately question the person who is the subject of a summons to appear. A person arrested under a summons to appear shall be questioned under the same conditions. However, if the questioning cannot be immediate, the person may be held by the police or gendarmerie for a maximum of twenty-four hours following his arrest before being brought before the investigating judge or, failing this, the president…

Any person arrested by virtue of a summons, who has been held for more than twenty-four hours without being questioned, is considered to be arbitrarily detained. The Articles 432-4 to 432-6 of the Penal Code are applicable to magistrates or civil servants who ordered or knowingly tolerated this arbitrary detention.

If the person sought under a warrant to bring is found more than two hundred kilometres from the seat of the examining magistrate who issued the warrant, and it is not possible to bring him before that magistrate within twenty-four hours, he shall be brought before the liberty and custody magistrate of the place of arrest.

This magistrate asks the person about his identity, receives his statements, after warning him that he is free not to make any, and asks him whether he consents to being transferred or whether he prefers to extend the effects of the warrant to bring him, while awaiting the decision of the examining magistrate hearing the case, at the place where he is. If the person declares that he or she…

The examining magistrate hearing the case decides, immediately after receipt of these documents, whether to order the transfer.

Where a transfer is required under the conditions provided for in articles 128 and 129, the person must be brought before the investigating judge who issued the warrant within four days of notification of the warrant. However, this time limit is extended to six days in the event of a transfer from an overseas department to another department or from mainland France to an overseas department.

In the event of failure to comply with the time limits set by the articles 127 and 130, the person shall be released, by order of the investigating judge hearing the case, unless his conduct has been delayed by insurmountable circumstances.