Tim Webb Jan 18, 2015:

Adrian Yes, you are quite right. I was thrown by the asker's sparsing (truncated). I suppose the ST must be 'comme prévenu DE' qqch

This may be an interesting chapter for Robin : http://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2guides/guides/juridi/in...

Adrian MM. (X) Jan 18, 2015:

comme = comme and not en qualité de To reinforce Allegro’s point and also echoing Tim W's past engagement with an ès prepositional phrase, ‘comme’ acts as an adverb. Beware of subconsciously and subliminally reverse-Anglicizing ès qualité de prévenu into comme prévenu:

https://books.google.at/books?id=kbg-AAAAcAAJ
requête du ministère public , comme prévenu d'usure et d'escroquerie

Does Prof. Noam Chomsky’s deep structure grammatical theory operate here to resolve the ambiguity? Probably not.

Tim Webb Jan 18, 2015:

AllegroTrans That article is about prévenir et prendre en charge drug addicts: more concerned with prevention/increasing awareness

AllegroTrans Jan 18, 2015:

Use as a verb meaning to charge See this doc: http://www.afro.who.int/pt/togo/press-materials/item/6562-pr...

Tim Webb Jan 18, 2015:

Prévenir = to charge? I'm not so sure, AllegroTrans and BDF. Prévenir does not mean to charge, so prévenu cannot be a pp here (unless it means "as warned"). It must be a noun (defendant)

AllegroTrans Jan 18, 2015:

As BDF correctly points out we are not talking about "un prévenu" at all - the word is being used as a past participle and this is plainly evident from the sentence

Adrian MM. (X) Jan 18, 2015:

@Robin L. It was you who claim that the 'prévenu' would turn into a 'defendant' once formal charges have been entered.

Jennifer Levey Jan 18, 2015:

@A MM If you can't differentiate between those concepts you're asking about, why don't you ask on a legal forum, instead of here? And if you do that, I'd suggest you indicate the jurisdiction(s) you're asking about.

Adrian MM. (X) Jan 18, 2015:

@Robin L. 'I don't think a 'prévenu' would be a 'defendant' until formal charges have been entered.'

You don't 'think' - then please tell us what is the difference between a suspect, an accused and a defendant.

Jennifer Levey Jan 17, 2015:

? What happened to James' comment that I took the time to respond to?

Jennifer Levey Jan 17, 2015:

@James I don't think a 'prévenu' would be a 'defendant' until formal charges have been entered.
Like everything else in the legal field, it depends critically on the jurisdiction. And Asker has told us nothing about that 'detail'.