What is "court of cassation"

Cassation \Cas*sa"tion\, n. [F. cassation. See Cass.] The act of annulling.

A general cassation of their constitutions.
--Motley.

Court of cassation, the highest court of appeal in France, which has power to quash (Casser) or reverse the decisions of the inferior courts.

n. (context legal English) In many legal systems, the highest court of appeal.

The Court of Cassation (; ) is one of France's courts of last resort having jurisdiction over all matters triable in the judicial stream with scope of certifying questions of law and review in determining miscarriages of justice. The Court is located in the Palais de Justice building in Paris.

The Court is the court of final appeal for civil and criminal matters. As a judicial court, it does not hear cases involving claims against administrators or public bodies which generally fall within the purview of administrative courts, for which the Council of State acts as the supreme court of appeal. Nor does the Court adjudicate constitutional issues; instead, constitutional review lies solely with the Constitutional Council. Thus, France does not have one senior adjudicatory body but four (including the Jurisdictional Disputes Tribunal), and collectively, these four courts form the topmost tier of the court system.

The Court was established in 1790 under the name Tribunal de cassation during the French Revolution, and its original purpose was to act as a court of error with revisory jurisdiction over lower provincial prerogative courts ( Parlements). However, much about the Court continues the earlier Paris Parlement Court.

The Court is the seat of the Network of the Presidents of the Supreme Judicial Courts of the European Union.

A court of cassation is a high instance court that exists in some judicial systems. Courts of cassation do not re-examine the facts of a case, they are only competent for verifying the interpretation of the law. For this, they are appellate courts of the highest instance. In this way they differ from systems which have a supreme court which can rule on both the facts and the law of a case. The European Court of Justice serves also as a court answering questions of European Union law and thus can also be regarded a court of cassation.

The Court of Cassation (, , ) is the main court of last resort in Belgium.

It was originally modelled after the French Cour de cassation. Its jurisdiction and powers are similar to those of its French counterpart.

To maintain readability: Dutch terms will be abbreviated as D, French terms as F.

The Court of Cassation is the highest court in Senegal. It is based on the model of the French Court of Cassation.

The Court of Cassation, also called Supreme Court of Appeals of Turkey ( – Yargıtay for short) which was founded in 1868 is the last instance for reviewing verdicts given by courts of criminal and civil justice.

The Court of Cassation (, Areopagus, i.e. the "Stone, or Hill, of Ares") is the supreme court of Greece for civil and criminal law. The Court of Cassation's decisions are irrevocable. However, Greece being a member state of the Council of Europe, cases ruled by the Greek Άρειος Πάγος can still be brought to the European Court of Human Rights. If the Court of Cassation concludes that a lower court violated the law or the principles of the procedure, then it can order the rehearing of the case by the lower court. It examines only legal and not factual issues and it is the highest degree of judicial resort. The court consists of the president and the attorney-general, ten vice-presidents, fifty five areopagites and fourteen deputy attorneys-general. The members of the Supreme Court enjoy functional and personal independence, as do all members of the judiciary, and are members for life, but they are required by law to retire at the age of 67 (article 87 paragraph 1 and article 88 paragraphs 1 and 5 of the Constitution of Greece).

The Court of Cassation is the main court of last resort in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has its seat in the Kinshasa Palace of Justice.

The Court judges final appeals with respect to the "normal" system of justice, excluding cases of administrative justice, which go before the Conseil d'État.