In the long litany of public services in crisis, justice is not the least affected. For years, she has suffered from chronic ills that have ended up starting her credit with litigants: lack of means, slowness of procedures, incessant showdown with the police, quick to denounce the supposed laxity of the judges, have plunged the institution In a deep existential crisis which, by ricochet, weakens the functioning of democracy.
Former criminal lawyer, the Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, clearly took the measure of evil to deal with. The plan he made public, Thursday, January 5, includes no less than sixty measures and does not abandon any aspects of the problem: from the formation of magistrates to the functioning of civil and criminal justice via the treatment of overcrowding prison, he claims to tackle everything that has contributed in recent years to start the bond of trust.
The most spectacular aspect is budgetary. After three decades of scarcity, the justice budget, sanctuarized by an orientation and programming law, is installed on a clearly upward slope. By the end of the five -year term, an additional 7.5 billion euros will be allocated to complete the construction of 15,000 prison places, renovate courthouses, revalue remuneration and create 10,000 additional jobs. The budget break, started three years ago, is now accompanied by an assertive desire to conclude a framework agreement with unions on quality of life at work.
In the organizational level, the announcements are not lacking in ambition either. The obsession with reducing the deadlines leads the Minister of Justice to propose to depth civil litigation by massively developing mediation. This approach, little developed in France, will force the judges to partially reconsider the way in which they exercise their charge. At the same time, the code of criminal procedure should be simplified and developed, at the risk of raising legitimate concerns among defenders of public freedoms.
a profession in full doubt
Two proposals are particularly monitored: the simplification of the framework of preliminary and flagrance surveys, and the extension of night searches to common law crimes. To defuse criticism, the Chancellery cautiously chose to place these modifications under the double control of a scientific committee associating law professionals and a parliamentary committee resulting from the two assemblies.
If he seems to strike just in the intentions, Eric Dupond-Moretti’s action plan will only be worth re-mobilizing an in full doubt profession, to which he is also asked to accept a certain degree of opening in recruitment and training. There resides the main question, because, if the first reactions are rather positive, the relationships have deteriorated so much between the former lawyer and the judges that the Chancellery does not appear today as the best placed to be the engine of An essential reinvention. Threatened with being referred to the Court of Justice of the Republic due to a potential conflict of interest between his former functions of lawyer and his role as minister, targeted by two magistrates unions, Eric Dupond-Moretti builds your own handicap. It is aware of the ills of justice, but did everything to complicate their resolution.