Éric Dupond-Moretti has been appearing since yesterday, Monday, before the Court of Justice of the Republic for “illegal taking of interests”. After a brief speech yesterday, he was heard this Tuesday and assured that he followed the recommendations of his teams.
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Éric Dupond-Moretti would have taken advantage of his position as Keeper of the Seals to settle scores with magistrates who did not suit him when he was a lawyer. There are two different folders. The first concerns a judge stationed in Monaco: Eric Dupond-Moretti had criticized his “cowboy” methods and had filed a complaint against him on behalf of one of his clients for violation of the secrecy of the investigation. In the other case, it concerns three magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office who studied Eric-Dupond Moretti’s telephone bills as part of the so-called “wiretapping” affair, which implicates Nicolas Sarkozy. “Barbouze” methods, the lawyer said at the time…
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The minister launched administrative investigations against these four magistrates just a few weeks after being appointed, on the recommendation of his services, he assures. This is what he has repeated on the stand since this morning, reports Marine de la Moissonnière of the RFI Company service.
“I did not arrive at the ministry with saliva on my lips, with the desire to take revenge », Declares in a calm but combative tone, the former tenor of the bar. He recounts his first steps in a world that is completely foreign to him. Places that crush, ties to buy, a complex administration, technocratic language and its objective, to succeed. “ I want, but you don’t know how much I want to succeed in my ministry, to carry out reforms. ».
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So, these procedures initiated against four magistrates before his arrival are the least of Éric Dupond-Moretti’s worries, “ I do not care “, he says. That he chose to extend them with administrative investigations is only because his services recommended it to him. “ Neverswears the Keeper of the Seals, he was never warned against ‘possible conflicts of interest’“ neither the Élysée, nor Matignon, nor its teams », in whom this novice has complete confidence. “ I never thought that my administration was offering me things that were out of the ordinary! »insists Éric Dupond-Moretti.
This unprecedented case makes him the Prime Minister of Justice in office to be tried. Eric Dupond-Moretti risks five years in prison and an additional sentence of ineligibility and prohibition from holding public office. But the Court of Justice of the Republic is regularly criticized for the leniency of its decisions…