Magistrates, lawyers and clerks mobilized this Tuesday, November 22 against a “discount justice”, a year after a resounding platform which had exposed their “suffering” at work.
Some 200 people gathered on the forecourt of the Paris court (TJ) chanting in particular ” means for justice ” Where “ justice at a discount, justice in danger “, noted an AFP journalist.
The president of the Syndicat de la magistrature (SM, ranked on the left) Kim Reuflet and the former president of the Syndicat union des magistrats (USM, majority) Céline Parisot read the text signed by 19 trade union or professional organizations calling for a “ general mobilization against cut-price justice “. This appeal denounces the untenable dilemma » with which the magistrates are confronted: « judging quickly, but badly, or judging well, but within unacceptable delays “.
Promises to hire 1,500 magistrates
“ Although the recruitment of magistrates and registry officials are planned for 2023, they are largely insufficient and no clear action plan has been defined as the urgency of the situation would require. “, reminded Mrs. Reuflet and Parisot.
Questioned in the National Assembly by deputies, the Keeper of the Seals, Éric Dupond-Moretti, highlighted his record on justice. “ We need not be ashamed of what we have done. We have repaired 30 years of human, political and budgetary abandonmenthe said, but things don’t happen at the snap of a finger “.
All of this is done to the detriment of litigants because delays are getting longer. We constantly have to arbitrate between certain files and that gives us a kind of conflict of loyalty.
The magistrates express their fed up before the Paris court
The Minister of Justice confirmed that a programming plan would be presented soon to secure the promises of hiring 1,500 magistrates for the next five years, but also 1,500 clerks and others, i.e. ” 10,000 staff in total “. Éric Dupond-Moretti also announced that he would present “in a few days” his proposals from the Estates General of Justice, with ” major simplification measures in civil and criminal matters.
An institution eaten away by a serious loss of meaning »
In addition to Paris, rallies were organized in Strasbourg, where around 150 people, including the president of the judicial court, met, as well as in Pontoise, Toulouse, Foix, Montpellier or Nice, where “ the court worked in slow motion “. ” Cases have been sent back to Nice as to Grasse “Said Judge Côme Jacquemin, member of the SM.
In Bordeaux, seat of the National School of the Judiciary (ENM), there was however no rally. “ Colleagues, both magistrates and civil servants, do not even have the energy to be in a mobilization “, explained Marie-Noëlle Courtiau-Duterrier, deputy prosecutor and representative of the USM. His colleague Denis Roucou, first vice-president of the tribunal and representative of the SM, spoke of ” a growing weariness “.
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Just a year ago, the platform signed by 3,000 magistrates had created an electric shock and alerted to the working conditions of an institution eaten away by a “ serious loss of meaning “. Written after the suicide of a young colleague, the text has today been initialed by nearly 8,000 magistrates, court auditors and clerks.
(With AFP)