Chantal Arens, the first president of the Court of Cassation, publicly reminded the custody of the seals to its mission to “guarantee the independence of justice”.
Le Monde
Voltage at the top of the judicial hierarchy. The highest magistrate of France, Chantal Arens, said Friday, March 4, the custody of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, his role as guarantor of the independence of the judicial authority, after the Minister of Justice has Accused the magistrates of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) to be “determined” to “salt” his reputation.
In a statement, “The first president of the Court of Cassation strongly regrets the remarks held by the custody of the seals, whose mission is to guarantee the independence of justice”. “By questioning the honor of the instructors magistrates, they contribute to weakening the judicial authority, pillar of the rule of law,” says Chantal Arens.
A swinging response to the statements held by Eric Dupond-Moretti targeting judges in charge of investigating the suspicion of illegal interest catch of interest to the Minister since July.
[News Release] by Mrs Chantal Arens, the first president of the Court of Cassation https://t.co/uxugc7kels “/p>- COURDECASSATION (@cour of cassation)
” The impartiality is not your subject “
summoned Thursday morning to be re-searched by Magistrates of the CJR, the seal guard had refused to answer their questions. In a statement read to the three magistrates of the CJR Training Committee, Posted by the newspaper The opinion and whose AFP has obtained a copy, the minister explains to wait “serenely” his trial to “defend his] honor, and finally restore a truth”.
He launched to the three judges: “Everything, in the conduct of your information, indeed demonstrates your determination not to make the truth about allegations that you have from the outset made for acquired, but to salt the reputation of A former lawyer you feed the only trial that interests you, that of his illegitimacy to occupy the functions of custody of the seals, Minister of Justice. “
“Investigations conducted in a totally disproportionate manner”, Mr. Dupond-Moretti ensures that the magistrates bear an old “enmity” that would have “due [to] lead to [SE] deportation of the file”. “But impartiality is not your subject,” he adds. He still denounces an instruction “biased” and the non-respect of his “most basic rights”.
In his Lapidary response, the President of the Court of Cassation “recalls that the independence of the judicial authority is guaranteed by the Constitution”.
“The investigating judges lead their mission, in a collegial way, in complete independence and respect for the law, their decisions being subject to appeal,” says Chantal Arens in his communiqué.
situations of conflicts of interest
m. DuPond-Moretti, named seal keeps in July 2020, is suspected of having benefited from his function to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had mesh to leave when he was a lawyer in two files.
The CJR had opened judicial information in January 2021 after the complaints of magistrates trade unions and the anticor anti-corruption association denouncing two situations of conflicts of interest since the arrival of Eric Dupond-Moretti to the Chancellery, in July 2020.
The first concerns the administrative survey he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the national financial prosecutor who had peel his detailed telephone invoices (“fade”) when he was still a star of the prerements.
In the other, he is criticized for having diligent administrative prosecution against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Edouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-customers and whom he had criticized the “Cowboy” methods. Eric Dupond-Moretti has always hammered that he did only “follow the recommendations” of his administration.