Simplified procedure
Article 524
This procedure is not applicable:
1 ° If the contravention is provided for by the Labor Code;
2 ° If the accused, author of a fifth class offense, was under eighteen years of age on the day of the offense.
This procedure can no longer be continued when the victim of the damage caused by the contravention has had the accused directly summoned before the order provided for in article 525 has been issued.
Article 525
The judge rules without prior debate by means of a penal order either acquitting a discharge or a fine as well as, where appropriate, one or more of the additional penalties incurred.
If he considers that an adversarial debate is useful, the judge returns the file to the public prosecutor for the purposes of prosecution in the forms of ordinary procedure.
Article 526
The judge is not required to justify the penal order.
Article 527
If, at the end of the period provided for in the preceding paragraph, the public prosecutor has not made an objection, the penal order is notified to the accused by registered letter with request for acknowledgment of receipt and executed according to the rules provided for by this code for the execution of police judgments.
The accused may, within thirty days from the date of dispatch of the letter, oppose the execution of the order.
In the absence of payment or opposition within the above time limit, the fine and the fixed procedural fee are payable.
However, if it does not appear from the notice of receipt that the accused received the letter of notification, the opposition remains admissible until the expiry of a period of thirty days which runs from the date on which the ‘interested party became aware, on the one hand, of the conviction, either by an act of execution or by any other means, on the other hand, of the time limit and the forms of the opposition which is open to him.
The Treasury accountant stops the recovery upon receipt of the notice of opposition to the penal ordinance established by the registry.
Article 528
Until the opening of the proceedings, the accused may expressly waive his opposition. The penal ordinance then resumes its enforceable force and a new opposition is inadmissible.
Article 528-1
However, it does not have the authority of res judicata with regard to the civil action for compensation for damage caused by the offense.
Article 528-2
When the summons is issued after a criminal order has been issued on the same facts, the police court rules:
On the public action and on civil interests if the criminal order has been opposed in the time limits provided for in article 527 and at the latest at the opening of the debates;
On civil interests only if no opposition has been formed or if the accused has expressly declared, at the latest at the opening of the proceedings, to waive his opposition or his right of opposition. The same applies if it is established that the penal order was the subject of a voluntary payment.
