It’s a classic political statement. We must put more resources into everyday justice, repeat those who aspire to universal suffrage. The one that directly interests the French because it decides on alimony and childcare, settles disputes between employees and employers or assists owners who are victims of an unserious contractor or a deadbeat tenant. But now, the good intentions hardly go beyond the stage of incantation. Less flamboyant than its criminal side, this civil justice appears more and more as the neglected part of our system, even though with 2 million decisions rendered in 2021, it represents two thirds of the activity.
On the eve of the presentation of the “action plan for justice” by Eric Dupond-Moretti, scheduled for January 5, cries of alarm have multiplied in the courts. In Pau, Toulouse, Nantes and elsewhere, the “civilists” crack and say so. Simple opportunism, some will sweep away. Deeply fed up, actually. In November 2021, already, the so-called “3,000” (magistrates) platform regretted: “We, local civil judges, must preside over hearings from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., without break, to judge 50 cases; after waiting hours of people who can no longer pay their rent or who are over-indebted, we only have seven minutes to listen and appreciate their dramatic situation.” In April 2022, it was the conclusions of the Estates General of Justice, wanted by Eric Dupond-Moretti and chaired by Jean-Marc Sauvé, which rendered a cruel verdict, confirming “the state of advanced disrepair in which the judicial institution is found today”.
At the beginning of December, it was through the thunderous voices of the president of the judicial court and the Bobigny prosecutor that the subject of civil justice came back to the fore: “Before the local courts, on average more than 50 files are heard by half-day of hearing, which does not allow suitable and decent conditions to allow the parties to express themselves”, they write in a “warning note” addressed to the Chancellery. In Nanterre, the vice-president of the court and the Hauts-de-Seine bar association have created an association and seized the Council of State of an appeal for excess of power against the State, judging that the latter does not give them lack the means to carry out their mission. Everyone is hoping for a strong signal from the ministry on January 5. Without great illusions, however, as criminal justice is set up as an absolute priority for the government.
18% immediate appearances for criminal cases, 13% in 2012
Civilians are, in fact, victims of a system of communicating vessels in force in most jurisdictions in France. In its criminal policy priorities, the Chancellery demands a “rapid and firm” response, in particular on intra-family violence and “petty” crime such as street selling. To satisfy this request, the prosecutors, responsible for directing the cases, favor a referral to an immediate appearance. In particular, when it comes to crimes committed by people who do not have a certain identity – in other words, foreigners who are suspected of being in an irregular situation – and who are feared that they will not appear at a scheduled hearing six or twelve months later. From now on, immediate appearances represent 18% of criminal judgments against 13% in 2012.
An increase which has forced the largest courts to increase the number of immediate appearance hearings, sometimes up to two per day as in Bobigny. However, each of them requires the presence of a president and two assessors. For the latter, civil lawyers form a convenient breeding ground: they hold few hearings, most of their time is devoted to drafting decisions, it is considered that they can free themselves up more easily for the “urgency” of these appearances. “They are permanent firefighters, regrets Christophe Bourgeois, delegate of the Union of Judges in Douai. When we pick them up because a colleague is absent or sick, they have less time to prepare their own hearings. do it late at night or on weekends or fall behind.”
A burden further increased by the development of immediate appearances, which have to examine more complex disputes than before. Where, yesterday, we judged in a short time a driving under the influence of alcohol or a theft in the metro, it is now necessary to dwell on cases of drug trafficking with several defendants or on intra-family violence where the interested parties dispute the facts. Given the sentences incurred, the lawyers plead longer and the hearings last later, until 9 or 10 p.m., sometimes until the middle of the night, cutting back even more the time that the civil judges can devote to their own business.
The Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, November 3, 2021 in Paris
© / afp.com/GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT
Solidarity within the courts is part of the traditions, but the weight is becoming so heavy that, in the most busy civil courts, the delays are getting longer and the tension is mounting. Even if the stock accumulated during the Covid has, according to the Chancellery, dropped by 30% over the past eighteen months, the processing times for civil cases are still high, fourteen to eighteen months on average. With very concrete effects for litigants. Thus provisional measures (places of residence of the children, distribution of the various expenses, etc.) requested by many couples in the process of divorce pending the final judgment: “In Nanterre, it takes eleven months to obtain them, eight in Nantes, regrets the lawyer Jérôme Casey. In other areas, you are now offered a hearing in November 2023, or even January 2024, even though the cases are in a state of being pleaded.
“We turn misery around”, loose a magistrate
Laura is a judge at the social center of a jurisdiction in the north of France. It must settle disputes between citizens and social security bodies, relating for example to compensation after an accident at work or the recognition of burn-out as an occupational disease. At the rate of one hearing per week with 25 cases in a position to be judged, it can only summon complainants one year after their first referral. The best. “And that does not mean that they will have a decision immediately if their file is not complete,” she notes. It may well establish priorities (it often considers that challenges to contributions by employers can wait with regard to ordinary citizens), it is struggling to reduce the stock of 2,000 annual files. Shocking, this prioritization? It is now widespread even if no one wants to acknowledge it publicly. If family matters are often put at the top of the pile – it is a matter of mass litigation, very visible – it is not uncommon that then, guardianship is favored over inheritance, alimony over commercial law or property. “We turn misery around”, sums up a magistrate.
And the frustration of not being up to the public service expected of them is growing among civilians. “I often think of a couple of bakers who had invested their savings in real estate in anticipation of their retirement and who were taken in by a promoter. Justice took so long to act that it ruined their lives Neither to them nor to those around them should we speak of justice”, underlines Kim Reuflet, president of the Syndicat de la magistrature. And it is the whole image of the institution that suffers from it in the population: “As regards divorces, civil justice is a machine for impoverishing women. We are obsessed with criminal law, with the need to protect them in cases of violence – and it must be done – but they are mistreated elsewhere”, adds lawyer Jérôme Casey.
The magistrates themselves come to abandon this part of the law. At the National School of the Judiciary, most students dream of doing criminal, rather than civil. “When I started in 1998 in Paris, the first civil chamber was considered something extremely prestigious. Now, fewer and fewer colleagues want to go to this field because we have become an adjustment variable”, regrets Fabrice Vert, head of the summary proceedings service in Paris and representative of the FO Magistrates Unit union. By spending too much time writing conclusions alone, civil lawyers have acquired the reputation of bookworms, less glamorous than the investigating judges of television series. While the matter is more difficult to master than the criminal. In small jurisdictions, it is necessary to know how to move from construction law to that of commerce, companies, family matters or succession. Sometimes for a handful of cases per year in each field and without being able to rely on more experienced colleagues since 90% of the decisions are rendered by a single judge and not in a collegial framework. Enough to discourage even the best of wills. Some magistrates only accept these positions because they allow them to be closer to their family or their region of origin.
Beyond the human resources that everyone is calling for, many are those who suggest improving the continuing education of civil lawyers or making them work more collectively. On the side of the ministry, we are calling for a sharp increase in the budget over the past three years, the hiring of 1,500 magistrates of all specialties and the development of “alternative methods of conflict resolution”, such as mediation, conciliation… to alleviate the charge of the courts. Not enough to reassure. The implementation, at the start of 2023, of departmental criminal courts, which will in some cases replace the assize courts, but requiring five magistrates instead of three, or the reflection on the creation of specialized courts on domestic violence rather leave presage a further increase in the “permanence” assigned to the criminal justice system. At the risk of weakening a little more the justice of everyday life, a priority that is badly treated.