nt and Tenure of Judges.*--All judges attached to the
ordinary tribunals are appointed by the President of the Republic, on
the recommendation, and under the responsibility, of the Minister of
Justice. With the exception of justices of the peace in France, and of
judges of all grades in Algeria and the colonies, tenure of judicial
office continues during good behavior; and, outside of the classes
mentioned, no judicial officer may be dismissed without the consent of
the Court of Cassation. There is, however, an age limit, varying with
the official grade, at which retirement is expected and virtually
required. Justices of the peace and Algerian and colonial judges maybe
dismissed by the President. Salaries range from 1,600 francs per year
in the case of the justice of the peace to 30,000 in that of the
President of the Court of Cassation.[501]

[Footnote 501: The best treatise upon the French
judicial system and upon proposed reforms of it is
J. Coumoul, Traite du pouvoir judiciaire; de son
role constitutionnel et de sa reforme organique (2d
ed., Paris, 1911). See Vicomte d'Avenel, La reforme
administrative--la justice, in _Revue des Deux
Mondes_, June 1, 1889; L. Irwell, The Judicial
System of France, _Green Bag_, Nov., 1902.]

*371. Administrative Law and Administrative Tribunals.*--Actions at law
arising out of the conduct of administration are brought, not in the
regular courts connected with the Ministry of Justice, but in special
administrative tribunals connected with the Ministry of the Interior.
Administrative courts exist for the application of administrative law,
and administrative law may be defined in brief as that body of legal
principles by which are determined the status and liabilities of
public officials, the rights and liabilities of private individuals in
their dealings with the official representatives of the state, and the
procedure by which these rights and liabilities may be enforced. The
idea underlying it is that the government, and every agent of the
government, possesses a body of rights, privileges, and prerogatives
which are sharply marked off from those of the private citizen, and
that the nature and extent of these rights and privileges are to be
determined on principles essentially distinct from those which govern
in the fixing of the rig