811.04551/25
The Ambassador in France ( Herrick ) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 28.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s Instruction No. 2027 [1627] dated June 25, 1926 regarding the proposed convention between the United States and France relating to letters rogatory. The Department observes that Article 6 (d) of the convention concluded between France and Great Britain on February 2, 1922, a copy of which accompanied my despatch No. 6327 dated May 14, 1926, contains the following provision:
“The judicial authority to whom the ‘commission rogatoire’ is addressed executes it by the use of the same compulsory measures as would be applied in the case of a commission emanating from the authorities of the State applied to or a request to that effect made by an interested party in the territory of that State.”
It was explained at the Foreign Office today that in the case of the Franco-British convention, each country executes “commissions rogatoires” according to the provisions of the existing local laws. To indicate how the existing French law limits the compulsion that can be exercised in the taking of testimony in France, the Foreign Office refers to Sections 363 and 364 of the rules of civil procedure which provide that if a witness refuses to answer a summons before a competent tribunal executing a “commission rogatoire” he may only be fined from ten francs to one hundred francs, at the discretion of the presiding judge. Furthermore, should he decline to give testimony [Page 123] in answer to the request of the judge the latter may accuse him of contempt and fine him a similar amount. This is the limit of compulsion at present provided for by the existing French procedure.
I am not cognizant with the measure of compulsion that can be imposed under British law, but it appears that the fines which are-authorized for failure to testify are of sufficient unimportance to nullify any effort to compel the giving of testimony in the case which the Department has in mind.
I have [etc.]