The personnel of the professions of justice marched everywhere in France this Wednesday, December 15 to denounce a lack of means. A call for mobilization launched by the unions of magistrates and clerks. The trigger was the suicide of a young 29-year-old magistrate on August 23 because of her working conditions.
In Paris, several hundred magistrates, clerks and lawyers gathered on December 15 in front of the Ministry of the Economy.
Signs raised high: ” Judicial misery, lies of the ministry “, or ” And where are they and where are they recruiting? “, To denounce the working conditions” degraded », Just like the column published by the daily The world and signed by nearly 7,000 magistrates, more than half of the profession.
” We have never seen such a mobilization, a unanimity in the observation of a dehumanized justice “, Added Katia Dubreuil, president of the Syndicat de la magistrature (SM).
The protesters also responded present in Besançon, Nantes, Bastia, Strasbourg. ” In the district of Strasbourg, there are 74 vacant registry staff positions, out of 270, it is more than a quarter », Assured a clerk, Caroline Barthel. In Lille, a minute of silence was observed in tribute to Charlotte, the magistrate who put an end to these days at the end of August.
The lawyers, real buffers between the victims and the gigantic processing times of the files by justice, live very badly not to have more means in what represents one of the pillars of the democracy. A difficult situation for Me Noémie Chanson interviewed in Nantes by RFI: ” It is extremely hard to live with. We absorb the anger, the incomprehension. We try to explain that it is not the justice that lets them down, it is rather the government that lets down its justice. “
For some of his colleagues, the extremely long delays are dangerous, as in cases of domestic violence: “ There are sometimes life and death situations. “Me Noémie Chanson justifies these problems by the lack of human resources:” Currently, if we take European figures, we are twice below the average number of magistrates and registry officials per inhabitants. “
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti announces an 8% increase in the number of magistrates, not enough for this lawyer: ” He was a lawyer, he cannot say he has not witnessed in the last thirty years the constant degradation of justice. “
Delays of several years, and this wait in the processing of files worries Me Stéphane Lallemant: ” The day when disputes are no longer settled in court, well they are settled in the street. This lawyer confides knowing several cases where the plaintiff died before being able to go to the end of the legal process.
A delegation of the inter-union will be received this evening by the director of the cabinet of the Minister responsible for Public Accounts. Government spokesman Gabriel Attal argued at the end of the Council of Ministers that there would be ” a 30% increase in the justice budget Between the start and the end of the five-year term.
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The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond Moretti announces an 8% increase in the number of magistrates, not enough for this lawyer …
Report by Matthieu Bonhoure, in Nantes