The Senate endorsed an “unprecedented increase” in the Justice budget, which will reach nearly 11 billion euros in 2027, on Tuesday, the first day of examination of the reform of the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti. Objective: “turn the page on the dilapidation and homelessness” of the institution.
The orientation and programming bill of the Ministry of Justice 2023-2027 is accompanied by a draft organic law reforming the status of magistrates.
The Senate will continue until Thursday, even Friday, the examination of these two texts and will decide on the whole during solemn votes next Tuesday. They will then go to the National Assembly.
“They have the ambition to respond concretely to the expectations of our fellow citizens, first and foremost that of faster justice,” said the minister. The goal is to “halve all justice delays by 2027”.
Article 1 of the bill, voted on by a show of hands, intends to increase the ministry’s budget from 9.6 billion euros in 2023 to nearly 11 within four years. It also endorses the hiring of 10,000 people, including 1,500 magistrates.
The senators increased the number of new clerks from 1,500 to 1,800 and provided for the creation of 600 posts of prison probation and integration advisers (CPIP).
The budgetary effort and the additional recruitments were welcomed by the magistrates, who were doubtful, however, about the promise of a rapid improvement in the processing times for cases.
The senators also remain unsatisfied. If the budgetary effort “is certainly welcome”, estimated the rapporteur Agnès Canayer (LR), “the construction site of the reform of justice is not only an accounting reform”.
The Keeper of the Seals stressed that the text endorses “significant upgrades to the professions of justice”.
Access routes to the judiciary will be reformed and opened up to new profiles. The reform also provides for the creation of a new function, that of “justice attachés”, which will replace the current “assistant lawyers”.
On the initiative of the government, the text establishes centers specializing in the fight against intra-family violence in the courts. An amendment by ecologist Mélanie Vogel provides for them to be operational by January 1, 2024 at the latest.
These poles were proposed in the report on domestic violence submitted on May 22 to the minister by the centrist rapporteur Dominique Vérien and the deputy Emilie Chandler (Renaissance).
“For lack of anything better, we will be satisfied with it”, commented the socialist Laurence Rossignol, who pleads for “a framework law” on violence against women.
Despite reluctance, the senators authorized the government to “clarify” by order the drafting of the code of criminal procedure.
The minister has pledged that the new code will not come into force until it has been ratified by Parliament.
The Senate Law Commission welcomed certain measures to modernize the judicial institution “favorably”. This is particularly the case with the experimentation with economic activity courts, with expanded jurisdiction compared to commercial courts. Or the strengthening of the responsibility of magistrates.
On the left, socialist Laurence Harribey, communist Laurence Cukierman and ecologist Guy Benarroche deplored the “absence” of a response to the question of prison overcrowding, while the number of detainees reached a new historic record on May 1 , with 73,162 people incarcerated.
The Estates General had suggested setting a threshold of “major overcrowding” for each establishment, beyond which measures to regulate the prison population could be considered.
The minister preferred to recall the “cap” set by the government to build 15,000 additional prison places by 2027.
Like the left, associations and lawyers are also concerned about a provision allowing, under certain conditions, forensic investigators to remotely activate a person’s electronic devices without their knowledge. It should be discussed in session on Wednesday.
06/06/2023 20:26:20 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
