The Public Ministry of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) announced on Tuesday May 10 that it had requested the referral to the Court of the former lawyer and current Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti, indicted for illegal taking of interests.
A tenor of the bar and minister, perhaps soon in court, but on the dock. The current Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti is suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble when he was a lawyer in two cases.
According to a press release from the general prosecutor’s office at the Court of Cassation, the public prosecutor ruled that there were “sufficient charges” against Éric Dupont-Moretti to refer him to the court of the CJR, the only court authorized to prosecute and judge. ministers for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions. The final decision on a possible referral of the Minister to the CJR’s judgment panel now rests with the CJR’s investigation committee.
Two folders
Éric Dupond-Moretti, appointed to the government in the summer of 2020, has been indicted for acts of illegal taking of interest since July 2021. Complaints from magistrates’ unions and the anti-corruption association Anticor, denouncing two conflict situations of interest since his arrival at the Chancellery, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation. Summoned in March and April by the magistrates of the CJR on the two files, he refused to answer their questions.
The first file concerns the administrative investigation he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) who had had his detailed telephone bills peeled (“fadettes”) when he was still a star of the bar. In the other, he is accused of having initiated administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Édouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients and whose methods he had criticized ” cowboy”.
A suspended minister
Éric Dupond-Moretti was alongside Emmanuel Macron for the national day on slavery in Paris, when the decision of the public prosecutor of the CJR fell. This is perhaps the ultimate image that we will have of the two men. The Council of Ministers this Wednesday at the Élysée will be the last for the government of Jean Castex, recalls Julien Chavanne, from the political service of RFI. It could also be for the Minister of Justice, while Emmanuel Macron is putting the finishing touches to his future team. Will he want to maintain in place a minister on trial before the Court of Justice of the Republic? The person concerned would like to remain in government.
In July 2020, the choice of the lawyer nicknamed “Acquitator” was however seen as a blow. But the two years of Éric Dupond-Moretti Place Vendôme will have been eventful. The appointment of the former tenor of the bar was experienced as “a declaration of war” by the magistrate unions. His regional campaign last year was a failure. A trial before the CJR could mark the end of his political career. He will not be a candidate for the legislative elections on his lands in the north of France.
(And with AFP)