What links unite the summits of the state and the judicial world ? Two sociologists conducted the investigation by mobilizing a demanding methodology.
What is an investigating judge in Mende, a substitute for the Ministry of Justice and an advisor to the Aix Court of Appeal have in common ? Beyond the diversity of work contexts and the types of litigation encountered the judicial magistrate, L. Willemez and Y. Demoli emphasize what makes the group and restore its internal structuring.
Their object is emerging around three central themes: the bureaucratization of the body and its organization, its social morphology, and finally the relationship of professionals to their function. Far from being confined to this descriptive dimension, the work brings a stimulating reflection on the position of the profession vis-à-vis the administrative elites, and more precisely on the links of interdependence between the summits of the State and the judicial world.
To carry out this ambitious project, bringing together monograph of the legal profession and theoretical development, researchers deploy a demanding methodology. The quantitative approach provided, ranging from logistical regressions toACM Going through sequence analysis, is supplemented by an interview campaign and the exploitation of a questionnaire. In addition, the current form of the profession is usefully put in context by a description of its historical genesis by the authors, from a review of the literature and an archive work.
An inventory of knowledge on the legal profession
Y. Demoli and L. Willemez update knowledge on the judicial magistracy From an overall perspective, little mobilized since the founding work of JL. Bodiguel and A. Boigeol. The approaches specific to the sociology of professions, such as the analysis of the social composition of its members, the study of their working conditions, and finally the structuring of their careers are thus placed at the center of the analysis.
The group presents a social recruitment similar to that of High Civil servants with regard to their average income and their social origin: 69% come from the social classes most endowed with capital (Fathers of business executives or liberal professions mainly), against 12.4 % only whose father is an employee or a worker. The body does not escape the logics of socio-professional homogamy either, since out of 100 magistrate, 79 have a partner belonging to the same socio-professional group (executives and higher professions) and that 20% are married to a colleague.
This high social recruitment is not a guarantee of satisfaction, as revealed by the results from interviews and the questionnaire relating to working conditions. These data emphasize psycho-social risks and cases of suffering in the professional framework experienced by those questioned. This finds an explanation in the “ overflowing work in relation to time and workspaces (P. 179), more regular than for most other professions belonging to the framework of executives. In addition, teleworking situations, sometimes made necessary by the smallness of the premises, strengthen isolation and promote the encroachment of professional activities in the private framework. Finally, the weakness of the reinforcement enrollment deepens the situations of overload and extension of times dedicated to professional activity. These difficulties are nevertheless to be qualified because they are unequally distributed in the body. Thus only 27.2% of respondents declare neither conflictuality at work, nor overflow. At the other end of continuum There is a significant part of magistrate-es saying in suffering (17.7% of the sample), at a daily basis punctuated by numerous ones and permanences, and whose tasks continue in the evening.
This approach by subjective relationships at work also makes it possible to grasp the career dynamics of the magistrate-es. They are first objectified from a quantitative point of view from various methods, then put into perspective by the interviews. Research brings to light a stratification by gender and age of functions in the body, with in particular a concentration of young magistrates in the prosecution. In addition, the prosecution appears as a male function while the seat is more feminized. The posts of chief of jurisdiction “ show a very atypical form of masculinization, having regard to the feminization of the profession (P.116). A logistical regression then makes it possible to estimate that, all other things being equal, being a man increases by 13.8% the chances of accessing the prestigious grade of out-of-hierarchy compared to the magistrates.
This overview of professional careers is supplemented by a graphic visualization of the careers of a cohort of magistrate of the 1980s. It reveals that if career movements are organized around the same progress rules, this does not exclude the existence of three ideal-typical career models: the magistrate of the prosecution, the magistrate of the more or less specialized siege and finally those made of many detachments. The realization of interviews makes it possible to grasp the springs of professional mobility. These appear as a quality inherent in the profession, widely valued. They are nevertheless a source of frustrations and the result of arbitrations to have private and professional life coincide. Whether functional or geographic, position changes are made to the disadvantage of women. To reduce the overflows of work on family life, the latter are more inclined to sacrifice desired functional mobility for local geographic mobility. However, these constrained choices affect the chances of accessing the grade out-hierarchy. THE “ Winning mobility (P. 165) Align with typically male trajectories, marked by a functional specialization and more geographic mobility.
Progressive empowerment vis-à-vis high administration
Port the portrait of this “ state bourgeoisie “(P. 103) is an opportunity to lay down the foundations of a theoretical reflection still little explored by the sociology of law, relating to the position of the magistrate towards the high administration. To operate this rise in general, the authors study the profession as a state body, that is to say as a specific form of work organization inherited from corporatism of ancient regime, in which careers are organized and supervised by central administration, from recruitment to advancement, passing through the training and delimitation of functions. Then emerges the portrait of an ambivalent profession, taken in a contradiction between, on the one hand, the historical process of empowerment of the profession vis-à-vis the high administration, and on the other hand, the subsistence of links of organizational interdependence between the two entities.
The work thus extends over the description of the genesis of the body. The period chosen extended from 1810, “ First moment of statuting of the judiciary »(P.21) To the organic law of August 8, 2016, last modification of its status. The table of a progressive professionalization of the judiciary is emerging, the main issue of which lies in its effort of empowerment vis-à-vis political governance bodies. First fully subject to their power of appointment, it detaches themselves very gradually thanks to the modifications of the recruitment mechanisms from the end of the XIXe century.
Because of the central role played by the judiciary in maintaining social order, this question remains essential throughout the XXe century. Subordination at the Ministry of Justice explains the little valued status of the judiciary during this period, resulting in a recruitment crisis and a disaffection by the legal elites. You have to wait for the Ve Republic for the trend to be reversed and that reforms give the professional group certain characteristics specific to large state bodies: entrance exam, specialized training school, entrance to certain magistrate to the Superior Council of the Magistracy (CSM) in charge of the discipline of the body and the distribution of the highest positions of the judicial organization chart. The period is also marked by the 1958 ordinance which organizes the body on the model of senior officials: proclamation of its unit, differentiation and prioritization in three grades, supervision of quarry mobility and establishment of disciplinary procedures. It is on the basis of these reforms that the judiciary is gradually different. Nevertheless, the maintenance of links of organizational interdependence with the Ministry of Justice restricts the autonomy of the group and the extent of its prerogatives.
The subsistence of links of organizational and social interdependence with the Chancellery
The difficult institutional balance between the Court of Cassation, the Ministry of Justice, the CSM And finally the professional unions would result, according to the authors, from the incompleteness of the process of empowerment of the magistracy. These tensions between aspirations at the self-government of the magistrate and the guardianship of the Chancellery are illustrated in the book by the case of career management in the body. The Directorate of Judicial Services plays a central role in the organization of professional mobility by placing magistrate in most positions in the profession, with the exception of high placed functions which are distributed by the CSM. If the latter is made up of magistrate and qualified personalities designated by political bodies, the Chancellery retains a privileged right of gaze on appointments by giving a more or less restrictive opinion on all the appointments having run there.
The situation of interdependence is embodied by the professionals themselves who circulate between positions in jurisdiction, and positions in high administration and regulatory authorities. The study thus points to the notable share of members of the body in motion towards posts at the Ministry of Justice and the large number of detachments (in 2017, almost 11% of magistrate experienced at least), although the typology of posts then invested remains unknown.
More than a reference work, Sociology of the judiciary is an invitation to the field. The complex links between the Chancellery and the judiciary are thus available in multiple spheres remaining unexplored for the time being, leaving to see the interest of more in -depth research. Among other things, the ministry welcomes offices in charge of the budget and judicial real estate, the Service of the General Inspectorate of Justice and still exercises a power of general instructions for prosecution.
If the approach by the profession is heuristic for investigators, it takes them away from recent developments in political science offering other perspectives on the current status of magistracy in the State. Current changes in forms of social regulations by law, notably illustrating by the delegation of public action to a system of agencies, redistribute the cards by widening the professional territory of magistrate.
These new administrative work spaces redefine the positions being accessible to them and represent an opportunity for expansion for the profession. The development of these unprecedented trajectories redefines the field of possibilities for members of the judicial magistracy, leaving to predict profound changes. In mirror of this morphological sociology of the body of the magistracy are thus outlined the reshaping of the public service and the contemporary transformations of the State.