Representation of other judicial organs in French "Cour de cassation" discourse

Abstract

The French Cour de cassation is located at the apex of the judicial pyramid. The court is responsiblefor verifying the conformity of decisions to the law. Despite the dominance of this pre-discursive ethos,the organ is not exempt from justifying its decisions, which are strategically made to be read at thehearing, and then published. From a discursive approach, it will be shown that argumentation in thosejudicial decisions is based on the distribution of roles, which influences the relationships between theCour and the judges. The discursive representation of judicial organs reveals a discursive routinelinked to the situation of enunciation marked by the judicial ritual. The representation of relationshipsand rigid staging give us information about the discursive image of the Cour and its ethos, which isparticularly relevant for its persuasive strategy.