The President of the Strasbourg Tribunal has passed in disciplinary hearing before the Superior Council of the Judiciary, Wednesday, March 16th.
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A Chairman of Tribunal accused of deserting, it was the uncomfortable grievance that the Higher Council of the Judiciary (CSM) examined Wednesday 16 March. The disciplinary authority of the judges was seized of the case of Thierry Ghera, President of the Judicial Tribunal of Strasbourg. He was criticized for leaving, in the early days of the containment of the spring 2020, the jurisdiction he was charged, to confine themselves … 730 kilometers further.
In this context of completely unprecedented health crisis, magistrates were supposed to implement a business continuation plan to treat urgent cases. “We did not even know if we could touch the files,” says Paul Huber, the Director of Judicial Services, at the hearing the Minister of Justice, the Prosecution Authority. In these critical days, the head of the Strasbourg jurisdiction was not found, and for good reason: he joined his family home in Graveson on 17 March (Bouches-du-Rhône), without having first informed nor the staff of the jurisdiction Neither his superior, the president of the Colmar Court of Appeal, who the sum of coming back.
In front of the CSM, Thierry Ghera justified his departure by a “major family obligation”, being concerned for his mother, over 80 years old and stayed alone in the south of France. Finally, for fear of contaminating it, he did not even visit him. But he specifies to be part of “the Serein Professional Spirit”, reminding that the modalities of continuation of the activity had been defined before his departure and that he had remained reachable throughout his stay, so that no dysfunction n. ‘could be raised in the Strasbourg Tribunal.
“It’s up to the captain to stay”
Now, it is not so much the consequences of the absence, ten days in total, the magistrate who were questioned at the hearing, but the very symbolism of the absence of the chief in a jurisdiction in a court. crisis. In this sense, the Strasbourg Attorney, staying alongside his troops throughout the confinement, as the Director of Registry Services, explained, during the investigation of the General Inspectorate of Justice, that it had felt his presence as essential and that “it’s up to the captain to stay when the boat is so. For this “post-abandonment”, the representative of the Minister requested as a sanction a displacement of the magistrate of the Alsatian jurisdiction and the withdrawal of his duties as President of Tribunal.
The lawyer of Thierry Ghera, Bernard Fa, recalled that a circular had then prescribed as mandatory the “non-presence” of the officials who do not assume essential missions to the activity.
The magistrate, visibly moved, “said” annihilated “to have to explain in this way after twenty-five years of presidency of courts … his professional assessments mention a” model administrator for a brilliant career ” or even an appointment to the presidency of a court of appeal. The CSM, rarely seized of the case of a president of jurisdiction, will make his decision on 20 April.