Inquiry Precinct

Formation

• Within the circumscription and headquarter of every court of appeal, there will be a department of investigation which will be constituted of a first examining magistrate and a number of examining magistrates.
• The first examining magistrate chairs this department and supervises the work procession. The allegations of the public prosecution will be directly referred to him and he handles in person the investigation in the high-profile cases and distributes the other cases among the examining magistrates of his circumscription.
• None examining magistrate should be appointed unless being a judge of fourth grade or above. As to the first examining magistrate, he should be of sixth grade or above.

Competence

• The preliminary investigation in crimes intends to unveil the perpetrators and to gather the evidences and as a result to bring the defendants before the competent justice to be sued before it.
• The preliminary investigation is obligatory in felonies and according to the estimation of the public prosecution of misdemeanors.
• The examining magistrate seizes the public case, in an objective way but not in a personal way. When he investigates in a lawsuit and reaches to detect a perpetrator, he can call for him and takes his statement in his capacity of defendant even if the prosecution did not deal with him before.
• He is not bound by the legal description of the prosecuted criminal action and he can give it the adequate description.

Accusatory Chamber

Formation

• It is one of the civil chambers before the court of appeals and is constituted of the president and consultants. It convenes whenever needed, and takes its decisions in the deliberation chamber unanimously or by the majority.
• Concerning the grades of judges, please review the part related to the “civil judiciary” in relation with the “Court of Appeals”.

Competence

• It is the prosecuting authority of the penal matters, the accused party will be brought before the criminal court as per an indictment issued by the prosecuting authority
  It is worth to mention that the decisions rendered by the prosecuting authority in its capacity of an indictment authority in the penal articles (counts) are whether to prevent the defendant from trial for factual or legal reasons or to charge the defendant with the crime attributed to him and refer him to the Criminal Court.
• It is an authority of appeal for the decisions of the examining judge:
  • The litigants in appeal and the decisions of the examining judge that can be brought into appeal:
    • Public prosecution: It can bring in appeal all the administrative, investigation and judicial decisions taken by the examining magistrate issued unlike its request, and also the decision of the judge to restitute the arrest decision because of the unavailability of its conditions within twenty four hours as of the date of rendering the decision.
    • Defendant: He can bring in appeal the decision of the refusal of his release and the decision of rejection of one or more of the formal pleas within twenty four hours as of the date of his notification of the decision in his elected domicile within the city located in the circumscription of the examining magistrate in case he does not have therein a real domicile.
    • Personal plaintiff: He can bring in appeal the decision of acceptance of one plea or more among the formal pleas if it makes harm to his interest, and the decision of the release of the defendant in right or against a caution, the decision of prevention of the defendant from trial and the decision of description the action prosecuted as breach, the decision of recuperation of a warrant of arrest against the defendant if he makes default to the procedures, within the delay mentioned in the previous article.
• The prosecuting authority may practice his right of opposition which enables it to decide on the merits of the public case instead of the examining magistrate after that the lawsuit is published before it.
• The prosecuting authority may have the power to decide on the claims of rehabilitation:

Every person judged for misdemeanor or felony has the right to claim the prosecuting authority in the circumscription of which his elected domicile is located to decide to rehabilitate him in case of the availability of the following conditions:

• The elapsing of seven years for the felony and three years for the misdemeanor on the execution of the punishment with the precautionary measure anti freedom that goes along with or its annulment by prescription. And if the indicted person was judged for the second time or was granted the rehabilitation the duration will be doubled.
• The non issuing of a future judgment against him for a felony or a misdemeanor.
• The execution, annulment, prescription or confirmation of the inability of the judged person to handle the civil obligations provided in the judgment.
• If it appears in the records of the jail and the investigation effectuated on the reputation of the judged person after his release that he became really upright.

Every person judged with a preventing misdemeanor sentence or anti freedom will be automatically rehabilitated if he was not prosecuted during seven years since the end of his sentence with another judgment of imprisonment, coercive residence or a stronger sentence.

Every person judged with a misdemeanor fine will be rehabilitated automatically if he was not prosecuted with another judgment with misdemeanor fine or stronger sentence within five years since the end of the duration of replaced imprisonment.

The concerned party shall present an application for rehabilitation as per a plea to be attached with the judgment issued against him and a criminal record dated one month as maximum as of the date of the presentation of the application.

If the prosecuting authority rejects the application of rehabilitation, a new application shall not be presented before six months as of the date of notifying the concerned party of the rejection decision.