The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, announced on Sunday April 28 the creation of a national prosecutor’s office dedicated to the fight against organized crime, in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche. This new public prosecutor’s office, the “PNACO”, “will strengthen our judicial arsenal to better fight against high-end delinquency”, explains the Minister of Justice, in order to “give new impetus to our judicial organization”.
“The idea of ??this prosecutor’s office is above all to better coordinate the action of justice and to make it more effective in its fight against organized crime,” continues Mr. Dupond-Moretti in this interview, taking the national prosecutor’s offices as an example. anti-terrorism and financial.
The former national anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-François Ricard, appointed a few days ago special advisor to the minister, will be responsible for consultation with a view to defining the contours of this reform, the details of which will be presented in October, specifies the Minister of Justice.
Creation of a “true status of the repentant”
Another project announced by Mr. Dupond-Moretti: the creation of a “true status of the repentant”, inspired by the model in force in Italy to fight against the mafia. In France, “legislation on this subject already exists but it is far too restrictive and therefore not very effective,” observes the former lawyer. Regretting that “the accomplices [of the big traffickers are] locked in (…) omerta, either [by] complacency, or [by] fear for themselves but also for their family”, Mr. Dupond-Moretti wishes to “break this silence” with this new status.
In the future, a judge may grant a special status to a repentant who has “collaborated with justice” and “made sincere, complete and decisive statements to dismantle criminal networks”: the sentence incurred by the person concerned will be reduced and he He will be offered, for his protection, “an official and definitive change of civil status”, a “totally new” system, according to the minister.
The Minister of Justice also proposes that special assize courts, composed solely of professional magistrates, be entrusted not only with drug trafficking in organized gangs, as is already the case today, but also, in the future, settling of scores between traffickers. This will avoid pressure and threats on the citizen jurors who must judge these assassinations, he notes.
Finally, the minister intends to create in the penal code a crime of “organized criminal association”, punishable by twenty years of imprisonment. Today, those who import “cocaine from Colombia” risk half as much for “criminal conspiracy”, he argues.
