History Bailiff

History Bailiff

HISTORY Bailiff: Brief history of the profession 


Cadet Rousselle has three houses,

Who have no beams or rafters,
It's to house the swallows,
What about Cadet Rousselle?

This song mocking the bailiff Guillaume Joseph Rousselle in 1792 to the tune of the song Jean de Nivelle has survived the centuries and is still relevant today.

It is the same with the occupation of judicial officer which knew how to cross the ages since Antiquity: isn't it said that the judicial officer is as old as the law, and as necessary as the judges?

HISTORY: BAILIFF IN ANTIQUITY

Within the framework imposed by the Pax Romana, the judges' decisions were implemented by officials. They were divided under different titles according to their functions. Their names were viatores, executorum latium, cohortales, statores; among them the most notable were apparitores and executores.

*The apparitores warned the people to gather them at the time of the judgements. They introduced the litigants and policed the hearings, i.e., they kept silent when the voices became too loud.

*The executores had the task of seizing (seizing) the assets of recalcitrant debtors or even taking them to prison.

HISTORY: BAILIFF IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Then the Pax Romana collapsed under the flood of numerous barbarian invasions and private justice reappeared.

The kingdom was organized around a set of hierarchies, each of which established its own judicial organization.
Justice, an essential attribute of power, then went under the banner of multiplicity. The laws were personalized according to whether they were royal, seigneurial, ecclesiastical or communal.

Yet in all these different jurisdictions, there was a certain unity in representing power. This required agents with undisputed authority.

Our Roman officials were then transformed into beaders, serviens, semonces (semonces were the ancestors of today's feats and deeds), then sergeants and bailiffs.

The sergeants were responsible for preparing the requests of the litigants and executing the decisions of the judges, but they were particularly concerned with the service of documents in the seigniorial courts.

Les huissiers (dont le nom vient de « l’huis », la porte) sûrs et attentifs, avaient la charge du service intérieur des Audiences et de la police des tribunaux.Puis, progressivement, les huissiers devinrent les officiers des juridictions importantes tandis que les sergents furent relégués aux juridictions de second ordre.

As their skills expanded, it became increasingly difficult to group them all into one category.

Different symbols were used to distinguish them:

On pouvait les reconnaître à leurs manteaux bigarrés puis rayés et à leur  » verge « .

Un décret datant de 1327 raconte que l’huissier devait avoir un bon cheval de la valeur de 100 livres, des armes suffisantes et une  » verge  » de la valeur de 50 livres.

Une ordonnance de mai 1425 précisait par ailleurs qu’ils devaient être mariés, tonsurés et porter continuellement leur costume rayé. L’huissier était un des symboles de l’autorité royale. Mais, c’était la  » verge  » qui était la principale caractéristique de l’autorité de l’huissier. Il s’agissait d’une sorte de petite baguette ronde, en ébène, longue d’une trentaine de centimètres garnie de cuivre ou d’ivoire.

Les huissiers devaient toucher, d’après un décret datant de 1568,  » ceux auxquels ils auront la charge de faire exploit de justice « .

C’est d’ailleurs de là que vient le mot  » exploit  » transformé par la suite en acte. (Le premier texte législatif qui prescrivit de rédiger des exploits et d’en laisser copie fut l’ordonnance de Villers-Cotterets)

De plus, et si l’on en croit Rabelais, ils portaient un anneau d’argent au pouce gauche. Cet anneau leur servait à sceller les relations de leurs exploits.Dès que l’huissier avait touché quelqu’un de sa  » verge « , celui-ci lui devait obéissance et soumission.

Il est à noter que François I »‘, apprenant qu’un de ses sergents de justice  avait été maltraité, aurait mis son bras en écharpe afin de marquer par ce geste symbolique que le traitement infligé à son agent le blessait lui-même et la justice toute entière avec lui.

Returning to costumes, they evolved and varied according to location and jurisdiction. A matter of culture and situation in this complex hierarchy, the bailiff's costume went from woollen dress to black satin, from a simple hat to a velvet toque with a gold cord... Until the most empanaché of all: the first bailiff of the Paris Parliament who had the title of Master, the quality of squire and therefore of nobleman, and whose costume was a red dress with a golden drape cap, rolled up with an ermine and a large pearl.

En Janvier 1572, nos officiers perdent l’obligation du port de leur costume et leurs signes distinctifs se réduisent à un écusson à trois fleurs de lys visible sur l’épaule et toujours la  » verge « . Parallèlement, ils virent leurs attributions se compartimenter. Par exemple, à Paris, la juridiction du Châtelet comprenait six sortes d’huissiers :

  • Bailiffs for the courts
  • The bailiffs on horseback for the suburbs and the countryside,
  • Bailiffs on foot to the city centre,
  • Auctioneers (the current auctioneers),
  • The bailiffs by the dozen (the provost's guards), plus 4 bailiffs called fieffés depending only on the Châtelet who could exploit in all the kingdom.

 

HISTORY: THE EIGHT OF THE MODERN ERA TODAY

Au mois de février 1705, un édit réunit en un seul corps la communauté des huissiers. C’est ainsi qu’ils prirent tous le titre unique d’huissier. Celui-ci leur permit  » d’exploiter en toute matière dans toute l’étendue du royaume et de résider où bon leur semblerait « .

This unification was accompanied by a regulation on their number. Until the judgment of 22 Termidor year 8, each court had to indicate by a notice the number of bailiffs it needed, thus allowing the central authority to take over this professional category.

Thus appeared a draft of the bailiff's statute, reinforced by an imperial decree, dated 14 June 1813. This decree took up some old texts to determine, for example, the method of appointment of bailiffs and to fix the required knowledge as well as the exact attributions of these officers.

Si aujourd’hui, l’Huissier de Justice n’exerce plus en costume, la baguette à la main pour ajourner ou saisir les débiteurs, il reste pénétré de la grandeur de sa profession et des devoirs qu’elle lui impose dans sa participation à l’oeuvre de la Justice. Et le mot de Saint Appronien, patron des huissiers résonne encore, plein de respect : « Mon dieu, mon dessein est de n’avoir nulle collusion avec la partie adverse de la mienne, je me propose de ne jamais saisir chevaux ou ce qui servirait au gain de la vie des débiteurs… »

STORY: THE BAILIFF OF TOMORROW 

After this history for which we thank the National Chamber of Judicial Officers, it is up to us to make a little prospective.

It is on the other hand undeniable that the judicial officer is not a man of the past: he handles the dematerialization of his acts, proceeds daily to statements of facts on Internet, signs electronically his acts and Minutes etc...

But above all, he remains the local lawyer, accessible to the people for whom the documents are intended. Even written, the acts of judicial officers do not today lead to a rupture of the dialogue between the litigant and the judicial officer. It is the same with the dematerialized act which could not create a rupture of the orality between the parties and the judicial officer.

But above all, just as bailiffs have managed to dematerialise their acts from the palace in civil matters to the Court of Cassation, these judicial officers, because they are independent of the parties and impartial by nature, will manage a guaranteed transmission of the dematerialised extra-judicial document.

The professionalism of the judicial officer, coupled with his special status and experience, make him the only professional capable of ensuring the transmission of high-quality dematerialised documents, protecting both the applicant and the addressee of the document.

Tomorrow, the profession of judicial officer will merge with that of commissioner of Justice, and will become commissioner of Justice. This is a new turning point in the history of the profession.