Original Jurisdiction - France

France

The lowest civil court of France, the tribunal de première instance ("Court of Common Pleas"), has original jurisdiction over most civil matters except areas of specialist exclusive jurisdiction, those being mainly land estates, business and consumer matters, social security, and labor. All criminal matters may pass summarily through the lowest criminal court, the tribunal de police, but each court has both original and limited jurisdiction over certain separate levels of offences:

• juge de proximité ("Magistrate Court"): petty misdemeanors and violations;
• tribunal de police ("Police Court"): gross misdemeanors or summary offences (summary jurisdiction);
• tribunal correctionnel ("Criminal Court"): felonies or indictable offences generally;
• cour d'assises ("Court of Sessions"): capital and first-degree felonies or major indictable offences, high crimes, crimes against the State.

For the administrative stream, any administrative court has original jurisdiction. However, while the Council of State has supreme appellate jurisdiction for administrative appeals, it also has original jurisdiction on a number of matters brought against national governmental authorities including cases against statutory instruments (executive and ministerial orders) and certain types of administrative decisions. These decisions are made up out of 2/3 Congress's vote.