The Court of Cassation, the highest court in the French judiciary, rejected on Wednesday December 18 the appeal of former President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy in the wiretapping affair, making his sentence, in France, to one year final. prison sentence under electronic bracelet for corruption and influence peddling. An unprecedented sanction for a former head of state, who did not wait to refer the matter to the ECHR.
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These sentences, so far suspended, will be applied: the former president, 69 years old, will be summoned before a sentence enforcement judge (JAP) to have an electronic bracelet fitted.
Nicolas Sarkozy “ will obviously comply » to this conviction, but he appeals to the European Court of Human Rights, his lawyer at the council, Me Patrice Spinosi, reacted to AFP, deploring a “ sad day ” Or ” a former president is required to take action before European judges to condemn a state over whose destiny he presided “.
In this case, Nicolas Sarkozy was convicted at first instance on March 1, 2021, then on appeal on May 17, 2023. The decision in this case, also called Bismuth, comes as the former tenant of the Élysée must appear from of January 6, and for four months, at the Paris court, in the case of suspicions of Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential campaign.
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In the Bismuth case, the former head of state had been, having established in 2014, alongside his historic lawyer Thierry Herzog, a “corruption pact” with Gilbert Azibert, senior magistrate at the Court of Cassation, so that he can transmit information and try to influence an appeal filed by Nicolas Sarkozy in the Bettencourt affair. And this, in exchange for a “boost” promised for an honorary post in Monaco.
The three men were given the same sentence, with, for the lawyer, a ban on wearing the black dress for three years. Claiming their innocence from the start, they filed appeals, raising twenty arguments, examined at a hearing on November 6, after which the decision was reserved.
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Parallel investigation
Before the Court of Cassation, which rules on the correct application of the law and not on the merits of the cases, the Advocate General methodically recommended the rejection of each point of law raised. Emmanuel Piwnica, lawyer on the advice of Thierry Herzog, criticized a procedure which “should never have seen the light of day”speaking of a file in which “we no longer count the illegalities committed, the breaches, the attacks on fundamental rights”.
The defense insisted on two main points: first, it hopes that a recent decision of the Constitutional Council, dated September 28, 2023 and originating in the Fillon affair, will allow it to obtain a new trial. In the name of the rights of the defense which must not be “theoretical and illusory”this decision requires a re-examination by a new court of appeal of a request for annulment of the entire procedure, argued Me Piwnica.
For years, the Sarkozy camp has in fact believed that the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) has unfairly ” hidden “ a parallel investigation, aimed at flushing out a mole who would have informed the former president and his lawyer that they were being wiretapped. The lawyers also contested the legality of the wiretapping at the heart of the case, a subject already debated many times in this case.
Me Patrice Spinosi invoked a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of June 16, 2016: “Nicolas Sarkozy cannot be criminally convicted on the basis of exchanges he had with his lawyer”because they cannot be “used against him”he argued.
In 2025, the Court of Cassation will also have to rule on the former president’s appeal against his sentence to one year in prison including six months closed in the Bygmalion affair, concerning excessive spending in his 2012 campaign.
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