French Word of the Day: Non-lieu
Why do I need to know
non-lieu?
Because
you might see this in a headline after a scandal in France.
What does it mean?
Non-lieu
- roughly pronounced non-lee-uh - translates precisely as 'not place'. The word
lieu
is widely used in everyday French to mean simply a place, as in
lieu de naissance
(place of birth) or
lieu de travail
(workplace).
However
non-lieu
has a very specific legal meaning. It
is actually a shortened version of a longer legal term, which is
non-lieu à suivre
or
non-lieu à poursuivre.
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In the French legal system, this basically means the dismissal of a case by the investigating judge (
juge d'instruction
).
READ MORE:
Crime and punishment: Understanding French legal language
As such, you might see headlines
non-lieu réquis par
, which means 'dismissal of the case requested by (insert famous person).
There are a few reasons why a
non-lieu
might occur, but some of the most common are a lack of sufficient evidence to justify further action, the end of the statute of limitations, or the death of the accused.
A
non-lieu
differs from another term you might see -
classement sans suite
- which is based on the discretion of the public prosecutor who might choose to drop the case before going to trial. It also differs from
l'aquittement
(aquittal) which occurs at the end of a trial.
As for the origin of this terminology,
non-lieu
has existed since the 19th century.
In the more general use of
lieu
it usually
it designates a real, physical space (
Lieu public ou privé -
a public or private space).
However according to the
Académie Française
, it can also be used more abstractly to refer to the 'grounds/reason for something'.
The Académie gave some examples of this usage, like
Il y a lieu de douter
(there is a reason to doubt) or
Il y a lieu à contestation
(There are grounds to contest) - and it's from this sense that we get
non-lieu
.
Use it like this
La justice a prononcé un non-lieu pour les trois policiers impliqués dans l'incident. -
The judge dismissed the investigation against the three police officers involved in the incident.
L'avocat a défendu le non-lieu, affirmant qu'il était conforme au droit et qu'il n'y avait pas de preuves réelles contre son client.
- The lawyer defended the dismissal of the investigation, saying that it was in line with the law and that there was no real evidence against his client.
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