The National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) did not live up to the importance of the investigation and the means of investigation used, which were particularly intrusive in matters of civil liberties.
The Inspectorate of justice takes many gloves to say it, but it is however what emerges from its report, delivered this Tuesday, concerning the famous affair of the "fadettes".
His revelation hit the headlines last June.
We then learned that nine of the largest French criminal law firms - including Dupond-Moretti, Temime, Lussan, Canu-Bernard, Haïk or even Veil-Jourde - had been the subject of investigation and expert appraisals of their fadettes or of geolocation by the national financial prosecutor's office.
The latter had not hesitated to add to the file wiretapping journalists, including Le
Figaro
.
The objective:
"to seek and identify alleged informants, within the legal milieu, who could have informed two people, both having the quality of lawyer, implicated"
in the case of wiretapping of Nicolas Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog.
To read also:
Éric Dupond-Moretti, the PNF and the "fadettes": is the Justice sufficiently independent?
The justice inspectorate points out, over 129 pages of meticulous work, the excessive slowness of the investigation, the lack of sufficient follow-up with investigators and within the national financial prosecutor's office and a lack of regularity of the reports. information within the judicial hierarchy.
It emerges from it the feeling of a lack of organization and maturity of this young public prosecutor's office in charge of the most complex cases, which moreover would not be unworthy.
But also a form of neglect of his hierarchical superior, the general public prosecutor of Paris.
"Partitioned operation"
The Inspectorate of Justice denounces, through a tight chronology, the lack of piloting of an investigation which begins on February 1, 2014 and only ends in December 2019. It will have known only
"a phase truly active ”,
between March and October 2014, before any investigative action ceases definitively, in December 2014.
“ A waiting phase of twelve months follows during which a single operating report of analysis of the telephone data obtained was carried out ”.
It will be closed on March 7, 2016 by the investigators at the request of the PNF and will remain
"in the magistrate's office for seven months, without making a decision".
The case is then relaunched, but
"no investigation was carried out in this case until March 2019, without relaunching the prosecution", "or nearly three years",
still note the five magistrates of the inspection in charge of the report.
"The file was closed on August 8, 2019 by the investigators and transmitted on August 9, 2019 to the PNF",
which will not close the file definitively until December.
To read also:
"Fadettes": the independence of the investigation questioned
The Inspectorate of Justice regrets a total lack of follow-up of investigators by the PNF, but also a
“compartmentalized functioning”
of this prosecution.
And this despite warnings, from lawyers, from "
on September 5, 2016, during the communication of a note of observations from defense lawyers relating to the registration in the national order office of a junction of this investigation ”
with the Libyan funding dossier for Nicolas Sarkozy's presidential campaign.
Repeated alerts until December 2016. Better still, the deputy financial prosecutor in charge of the Libyan case "
only learned incidentally of the existence of the 306 investigation
(the investigation of the fadettes, editor's note)
, in December 2019, on the occasion of a request for disclosure of the latter, presented orally by one of the defense lawyers ”.
The inspection also notes, if not a certain erraticity in the feedback of information, at least a
"lack of feedback"
from the PNF to the general prosecutor's office, its supervisory authority, in view of the sensitivity of the main case. implicating a former President of the Republic and
"relating to a suspicion of leaks within the judicial world".
On the other hand, it pays tribute to the investigators of the Central Office for the fight against corruption and financial and fiscal offenses (OCLCIFF) who produced
"clear and factual reports"
and
"took care not to expose too much privacy. or the professional secrecy of the holders of the lines operated ”.
If she refrains from judging the advisability of a preliminary investigation, she recalls that the financial prosecutor "
had other options to guide the pursuit of the investigations
".
Among the recommendations, the inspectorate insists on the creation of
“an investigation office”, “the reassessment of hierarchical structures”
and a real
“strategic vision”.