The decision rendered on Friday March 28 by the Constitutional Council on immediate ineligibility will be without impact on the case of Marine Le Pen, threatened for not being able to present itself in 2027, and which will be fixed on its fate in court on Monday. In this decision, consulted by AFP, the wise men were content to strictly answer the question, which concerned the case of local elected officials, and considered that the law was in accordance with the Constitution.
The Sages had looked at the subject of immediate ineligibility last week, during a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) without any link with the file of the National Rally. But this coincidence of the calendar led to a cascade of assumptions on the possible effects of their decision on the judgment that the Paris Criminal Court will make on Monday. Marine Le Pen will know at that time if the judges follow the requisitions of the prosecution which required an immediate penalty of ineligibility (even applying in the event of an appeal).
In his camp, we hoped that the Constitutional Council is taking advantage of this QPC to send a message to the magistrates responsible for its file, three days of judgment, by pronouncing more widely on the principle of immediate ineligibility – for example to say that the freedom of the voter to choose his presidential candidate must take precedence over a non -definitive court decision. It was not.
“A fairly classic reminder”
The Constitutional Council was content to make “a fairly classic reminder of the rules of balance that the judge already knew”, notes Anne-Charlène Bezzina, lecture of conferences in public law at the University of Rouen.
“It is up to the judge, in his decision, to assess the proportionate nature of the attack that this measure is likely to bring to the exercise of an in progress mandate and to the preservation of the freedom of the voter,” write the wise men in their decision.
The QPC, examined on March 18 in front of an unusually supplied audience, had been laid by a local elected official from Mayotte, deprived of his mandate after being sentenced to an ineligibility sentence with provisional execution. This rule, had notably supported its lawyers, is contrary to the constitution because it undermines the separation of powers and the “preservation of the freedom of the voter”.
They also said that there was a break in equality between (national) parliamentarians and local elected officials in the matter: the former depend on the Constitutional Council, which systematically refuses to pronounce a defying of mandate as long as the court decision is not final, while the latter depend on the Council of State, which makes it apply immediate ineligibility.
“Proportionate” damage to the right to eligibility
The Constitutional Council swept these criticisms in its decision. First of all, to say that indeed, the automatic resignation of a local elected official undermined his right to eligibility, but that this attack was proportionate, in particular in the name of “the requirement of probity and exemplarity of elected officials, and the confidence of voters in their representatives”.
As for the question of rupture of equality with deputies and senators, the Constitutional Council judged that the “difference in treatment” was justified because parliamentarians, unlike local elected officials, “participate in the exercise of national sovereignty”, “vote the law and control the action of the government”.
Reading the judgment of Marine Le Pen (as well as her 25 co -ownerships, of which her party) will start on Monday at 10:00 am at the Paris Criminal Court and is expected to last several hours. The magistrates responsible for his file have already made their decision (they have been deliberating for four months) and it is highly likely that, having in mind the political issues, they will have taken care to scrupulously motivate their decision. “Tomorrow, potentially, millions and millions of French people would be deprived of their presidential candidate,” said Marine Le Pen during her last interrogation.