The Court of Justice of the Republic rejected on Tuesday June 14 several requests from the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti, indicted since July 2021 for illegal taking of interest, indicated the general prosecutor's office at the Court of Cassation, requested by the AFP.
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Seized by the lawyers of the Keeper of the Seals, the CJR's investigating committee rejected their request to hear Céline Parisot, president of the Union Syndicale des Magistrates (USM), one of the unions behind the complaints filed with the Anticor association to denounce conflict of interest situations in two files.
She also refused to hear Henri-Claude Le Gall, retired honorary magistrate and former president of the CJR between 2000 and 2012. This same investigative committee had asked for her opinion on the procedure to follow concerning nullity requests filed by the minister.
Also seized of a request for cancellation of the procedure, the commission judged it admissible but did not grant it.
“
These are expected decisions which are in line with the “jurisprudence” adopted by the investigating committee in this case
”, reacted to AFP Mes Christophe Ingrain and Rémi Lorrain, lawyers for the minister.
“
We will challenge them before the Court of Cassation
,” they added.
The magistrates of the CJR completed their investigations in this case in mid-April.
On May 9, the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation François Molins, who represents the public ministry before the CJR, requested a trial for the minister, judging that there were “
sufficient charges
” against him.
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Suspected of having taken advantage of his position as a lawyer
The minister, who entered the government in the summer of 2020 and then was reappointed to the Chancellery after the re-election in May of Emmanuel Macron, is suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble from when he was a lawyer in two files.
The first concerns the administrative investigation he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) who had had his detailed telephone bills examined ("
fadettes
") when he was a lawyer.
In the second, he is accused of having initiated administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Édouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients.
Éric Dupond-Moretti disputes the facts, claiming to have only "
follow the recommendations of his administration
".
Summoned in March and April to be re-examined by the magistrates of the CJR, he had refused to answer their questions.
At the beginning of May, the public prosecutor's office at the Court of Cassation closed another complaint from the USM, which accused the minister of having intervened in "
the management of the Cayenne Court of Appeal
", chaired by Marie-Laure Piazza, while a "
serious incident
" had opposed them in 2016 when he was a lawyer.
When this complaint was revealed, the Department of Justice announced that a slanderous complaint would be filed in return.
According to the entourage of Éric Dupond-Moretti, this was ultimately not done.
