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Where to Check Paris Court Records
Paris offers multiple avenues for accessing information on criminal court cases, depending on whether you're looking for recent decisions, historical archives, or procedural records.
1. Public Open Data: Recent Court Decisions
France's Ministry of Justice runs an open-data initiative that makes many court decisions available online. These decisions are anonymized before publication—names of parties are masked, and additional details can be redacted by magistrates if privacy concerns exist. This applies to decisions from criminal courts among others
Moreover, the Cour de cassation (France's highest ordinary court) is expanding its open-data transparency: decisions from other judicial bodies, including criminal jurisdictions, are being published between June 2023 and December 2025, following a decree from April 2021
If you're interested in historical criminal proceedings, Paris has robust archival resources:
Archives de Paris
This is a key repository for criminal and civil judicial records in the city. However, access to older archives is limited due to past events like the 1871 fire at the Palais de Justice, which destroyed many records from older jurisdictions (e.g., Cour d’assises, Tribunal civil de la Seine). As a result, most archives available here date from after 1871.
The Archives de Paris have digitized registers including civil and correctional judgment records, and even documents like military death records and restitution orders
You can contact them directly at 18 boulevard Sérurier, 75019 Paris to inquire about searching correctional or criminal judgments
France Archives and Departmental/National Archives
For broader historical criminal case research, court archives may also be located at the Archives nationales or local Archives départementales. Their collections are organized into classification series:
Series B: Judicial archives from before 1790.
Series L: Revolutionary period.
Series U: Covers 1800–1958 and is one of the most extensive modern justice series.
Series W: Post-1958 archives
These resources often include judgment registers, procedural dossiers, and plumitifs (hearing logs), which can guide you to locate specific criminal cases
3. Current Court Venue: Criminal Case Access & Procedures
If you're looking for information on ongoing or recent criminal cases, here’s what to know:
Tribunal judiciaire de Paris (formerly TGI)
Located in the Judicial Campus of Paris (Batignolles), this court handles a broad range of criminal matters, including major felonies and specialized cases like terrorism, war crimes, and complex financial crimes
The Tribunal correctionnel (criminal court) handles serious misdemeanors ("délits") with penalties up to 10 years in prison, while the Cour d’assises manages the most severe crimes, such as murder or rape, with trial by jury
Court at the Palais de Justice (Île de la Cité)
The Palais de Justice still houses the Cour d'appel de Paris and the Cour de cassation, as well as the cour d’assises spéciale for high-profile cases
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