A new sentence proposal is not a new element which makes it possible to propose a second appearance on prior recognition of guilt (CRPC) after a refusal to approve a first, ruled the Court of Cassation in a judgment on Wednesday May 18 .
Read alsoThe Court of Cassation will decide on the “Macron scale”
The highest French judicial court on Wednesday declared inadmissible an appeal by the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) in excess of power against a decision of October 12 by a judge of the Paris court in a money laundering case.
Difficulties in the file of a Franco-Canadian
In this case, Claude C., a French-Canadian born in 1952, a retired Cogema geologist, agreed to admit his guilt for facts related to the appearance of his name on a trust reported by New Zealand in 2016. , to which 17 million Canadian dollars had been transferred in 2007, of which only two million remained in 2018.
The PNF had indicated at the hearing of October 12 that it was not proven that the respondent had had these funds in his possession but he “
appears as a nominee, knowingly
”.
The primary beneficiary would be a Canadian tax lawyer.
"
The squandering of funds is not traced, we will not know the truth
", had regretted the public ministry.
“Interpretation” of the Code of Criminal Procedure
The PNF's first sentence proposal in July, six months suspended prison sentence and a fine of 175,000 euros, as well as an exemption from registration in the criminal record, had been refused because of this last element.
The PNF proposed on October 12 a new CRPC with the same penalty, except for the request for exemption from registration in the criminal record and a judge of the Paris court declared inadmissible this new request from the PNF.
Declared inadmissible, the public prosecutor then seized the Court of Cassation of this appeal so that it “
decided on this new legal tool: what does the law say about it?
“, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Read alsoCode of Criminal Procedure: lawyers brought up against the Court of Cassation
But for the Court of Cassation, it is deduced from the code of criminal procedure and its "
interpretation in the light of parliamentary work (...) that a new sentence proposal cannot authorize, after a refusal of homologation, the implementation of another CRPC
”.
The case could therefore be judged more classically during a hearing before the criminal court.
