The Court of Cassation confirmed on Friday that the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti would soon be tried by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) for suspicion of illegal taking of interests, an unprecedented hearing in the history of the V Republic with heavy stakes for the majority.
He nevertheless retains Elisabeth Borne’s “full confidence” in Matignon, who “takes note of the decision” and recalls that the Minister of Justice is “presumed innocent” and that the legal proceedings “are continuing in full independence”.
“Unprecedented”, this situation “discredits the Keeper of the Seals and, in turn, weakens the entire judicial institution”, retorted the Union of Judges (USM) and the Union of the Judiciary (SM), which had carried complaint against the Minister on December 17, 2020.
Eric Dupond-Moretti is suspected of having taken advantage of his function as minister to settle accounts with magistrates whom he had opposed in his first life as a lawyer.
“I am first at work, you have seen it and then I will respond when the time comes”, reacted to the press on Friday the minister, visiting Pontet (Vaucluse).
Mr. Dupond-Moretti had lodged seven appeals against the procedure and an eighth against the October judgment having pronounced his dismissal for trial.
Among the contentious points raised, on which his defense relied heavily, the absence of notification to the Keeper of the Seals of his right to silence during a crucial hearing; sorting of documents by a clerk; the role of judge and party assigned to François Molins, who left his post as public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation at the end of June; the initial complaints from the magistrates’ unions and Anticor, presented as irregular…
Both camps expected a decision more favorable to the minister, for example a return of the investigation file to the investigating magistrates.
But the Court of Cassation has largely validated the investigation, fully following the requisitions made by Advocate General Frédéric Desportes during the hearing on July 7.
She explained in a press release that she had mainly canceled a seizure of documents carried out by a clerk during the July 2021 search at the ministry, but considered that, even without these elements, the dismissal judgment mentioned “sufficient charges” to allow a trial.
On the minister’s right to silence, the Court of Cassation notes that the CJR’s investigating committee “informed the minister of (this) right when he first appeared before it to be questioned”, in July 2021 .
“This notification is valid for the entire duration of the information procedure conducted by the investigating committee” and therefore did not have to be renewed at the October 2022 notification of charges hearing, according to the Court .
Eric Dupond-Moretti “has confidence and the hearing to come will allow him to prove his innocence”, reacted in a statement to AFP Me Patrice Spinosi and Rémi Lorrain, his two lawyers.
During this hearing, within a period that could be counted in months, the minister “will explain the facts of which he is accused (…) to defend his rights as any litigant”, according to his lawyers.
After the “control of the investigation procedure” by the Court of Cassation”, “it is now up to the Court of Justice of the Republic to rule on the merits by taking up the entirety of this file”, according to the lawyers.
This hearing and its outcome could call into question the political future of Eric Dupond-Moretti, confirmed as Keeper of the Seals during the recent government reshuffle.
Throughout this judicial investigation opened in early 2021, the minister repeated that he had only “followed the recommendations of his administration” by triggering investigations against magistrates, and denounced an instruction from the CJR against him.
A first file concerns the administrative investigation ordered in September 2020 targeting three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF).
They had had his detailed telephone bills (fadettes) go through when Mr. Dupond-Moretti was still a star at the bar, with the aim of flushing out a possible mole who would have informed ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy that he was tapped in the so-called “Paul Bismuth” corruption case.
The second case concerns the administrative investigation against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Edouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his clients when Mr. Dupond-Moretti was a lawyer.
Eric Dupond-Moretti had at the time criticized “cowboy” methods.
None of these four magistrates was sanctioned. They had been exonerated by the disciplinary body of magistrates.
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28/07/2023 17:06:17 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
