Book I: Provisions common to all courts

New pleas are not admissible before the Cour de cassation. They may nevertheless be raised for the first time, unless otherwise provided: 1° Pleas in law of a purely legal nature; 2° Pleas arising from the contested decision.

The Cour de cassation may dismiss the appeal by substituting a ground of pure law for an erroneous ground; it may also do so by disregarding an erroneous but superabundant ground of law. It may, unless otherwise provided, quash the contested decision by raising a ground of pure law of its own motion.

If the appeal in cassation is dismissed, the party who lodged it is no longer eligible to lodge a new appeal against the same judgment, except in the case provided for in Article 618. The same applies when the Cour de cassation declares that it has lost jurisdiction, declares the appeal inadmissible or declares that the appeal has lapsed. A defendant who has not lodged a cross-appeal or an appeal…

Judgments handed down by the Court of Cassation are not subject to opposition.

Cassation may be total or partial. It is partial when it affects only certain heads that can be dissociated from the others.

The scope of the cassation is determined by the operative part of the judgment that pronounces it. It also extends to all the provisions of the judgment quashed that have a link of indivisibility or necessary dependence.

It entails, without there being any need for a new decision, the annulment by consequence of any decision which is the consequence, application or execution of the judgment set aside or which is connected to it by a link of necessary dependence. If so requested, the Court may, in the operative part of the judgment of cassation, rule that the parties whose presence before the referring court is no longer…