Court of Cassation of France

The Court of Cassation, known in French as the Cour de cassation, is the supreme court for civil and criminal cases in France and the country's highest court, one of four superior courts alongside the Council of State, the Constitutional Council, and the Jurisdictional Disputes Tribunal. It principally hears appeals in cassation against decisions of the courts of assizes and courts of appeal, reviewing only questions of law rather than fact, and it bears ultimate responsibility for the uniform interpretation of French statutory law; it also screens constitutional challenges before forwarding them to the Constitutional Council and reviews lower court verdicts referred by the European Court of Human Rights. Organized into three civil chambers, a commerce chamber, a labour chamber, a criminal chamber, and a prosecutorial service, the Court usually rules in panels of three or five judges, reserving plenary sessions for its most significant cases. It was established in 1790 as the Tribunal of Cassation during the French Revolution, continuing much of the earlier Paris Parlement's role, and several other countries later modeled their own courts of cassation on it. The Court sits in the Palace of Justice in the 1st arrondissement of Paris.