Complaints related to the management of the coronavirus health crisis pile up on the table of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), the only body empowered to try ministers, for acts committed in the exercise of their missions . This week again, Claire Loupiac, the widow of an emergency doctor at the hospital in Lons-le-Saunier (Jura) carried away by the Covid-19, announced her intention to attack the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, and her predecessor, Agnès Buzyn.
Since the start of the crisis, no fewer than 55 proceedings - a figure ten times higher than in normal times - have been brought to court, according to figures from 20 Minutes. Some target Olivier Véran and Agnès Buzyn, others the Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe, but also the Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner and his Secretary of State Laurent Nunez, or even the Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud.
Meager chances of going to trial
They come from individuals, doctors, associations, and sometimes prisoners. "What is blamed on the ministers is not having wanted to cause death, but unintentional crimes", reports to the JDD the former investigating judge Laurence Vichnievsky, who sits on the CJR in his capacity as MP (MoDem). "These complaints may suggest the crime of endangering others, which requires, to be characterized, a deliberate violation of a rule or an obligation of prudence, or that a fault has been committed, for example".
But to have a chance of success, a complaint will have to take a long and winding road. It must first be examined by the requests commission of the CJR, composed of nine high magistrates, which will decide to classify or seize the public prosecutor. The latter then decides whether or not to seize the investigation commission, the only body able to decide on a possible referral before the judges of the CJR. According to Europe 1, at the end of April, only two complaints from members of the medical profession, very documented, were being studied carefully.