Section 2: Formation of the jury

On the day specified for each case, the court sits and has the accused introduced. The trial jury is formed in open court. The presence of the accused’s lawyer is not prescribed on pain of nullity.

The chairman asks the accused for his surname, first names, date and place of birth, occupation and residence.

The clerk calls the roll of the unexcused jurors. A card bearing their name is placed in a ballot box.

The trial jury is composed of six jurors when the court rules at first instance and nine jurors when it rules on appeal. The court must, by judgment, order, before the list of jurors is drawn, that, independently of the trial jurors, one or more additional jurors be drawn by lot to attend the proceedings and to be present, without being able to express their opinion, during the deliberation. In…

The accused or his lawyer first, and then the public prosecutor, shall challenge such jurors as they see fit, as their names come out of the ballot box, except for the limitation expressed in article 298. The accused, his lawyer or the public prosecutor may not state their grounds for challenge. The trial jury is formed at the moment when the names of six or nine jurors who have not…

When the Assize Court rules at first instance, the accused may not challenge more than four jurors and the public prosecutor may not challenge more than three. On appeal, the accused may not challenge more than five jurors and the public prosecutor may not challenge more than four.

If there are several defendants, they may agree to exercise their challenges; they may exercise them separately. In either case, they may not exceed the number of challenges determined for a single accused.

If the defendants do not agree to challenge, the lot settles among themselves the rank in which they make the challenges. In this case, jurors challenged by one, and in that order, are challenged by all until the number of challenges is exhausted.

The defendants may agree to exercise part of the challenges, except to exercise the remainder according to the rank fixed by lot.

The court clerk shall draw up minutes of the proceedings for the formation of the judging panel.