Indicted since July 2021 for illegal taking of interest, will Éric Dupond-Moretti be tried?
The Keeper of the Seals will know on Monday, October 3 whether or not he is referred to the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR).
The Minister of Justice is summoned with his lawyers at 9:00 a.m. before the commission of instruction of the CJR.
The three magistrates who compose it will tell him whether or not they have decided to refer him to the trial court of this body, the only one empowered to judge members of the government for crimes or misdemeanors committed in the exercise of their mandate.
The former tenor of the bar, whose relations with the judiciary are notoriously difficult, has already taken the lead and said on Tuesday that he had "
virtual assurance
" of being fired.
New complaint
“
Given the conditions under which the investigation was carried out, we unfortunately have no illusions about the meaning of the decision which must be rendered on Monday
”, added Friday to AFP the minister’s lawyers, Mes Christophe Ingrain and Rémi Lorrain.
The two counsel also indicated that they had filed a new complaint for violation of the secrecy of the investigation, deploring that "
whole sections of the final indictment of the Attorney General
" were revealed by
Le Monde
on Friday "
in order to harm
" their client, according to them.
Read alsoThe disciplinary hearing of a magistrate scratches Éric Dupond-Moretti
Raised at each procedural stage of this file, the question of maintaining the government of Éric Dupond-Moretti, reappointed to the Chancellery after the re-election in May of Emmanuel Macron, would arise again.
“
I have always said that I got my legitimacy from the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister and from them alone
,” said Éric Dupond-Moretti on Tuesday.
At the heart of the case, suspicions of conflicts of interest: entered the government in the summer of 2020, Éric Dupond-Moretti is accused of having taken advantage of his function to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble from when he was a lawyer, which he disputes.
"Fadettes"
Complaints from magistrates' unions and the anticorruption association Anticor, denouncing two situations of conflict of interest since his arrival at the Chancellery, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation in January 2021. The first file concerns the administrative investigation he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF).
They had had his detailed telephone bills ("
fadettes
") go through when he was still a star at the bar in order to flush out a possible mole who would have informed Nicolas Sarkozy that he was being wiretapped in the so-called "
Paul Bismuth
" corruption case. ".
A deputy prosecutor of the PNF, Patrice Amar, and his ex-boss, Eliane Houlette, appeared in September before the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM).
No sanction has been requested against them and the decision of the CSM is expected on October 19.
The third magistrate implicated, Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss, was cleared before any hearing before the CSM.
In the second case, the Keeper of the Seals 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 had criticized his “
cowboy
” methods .
The CSM decided on September 15 not to sanction Édouard Levrault, considering that “
no disciplinary breach could be blamed on him
”.
A decision that sounded like a disavowal of the minister.
Read alsoThe fadettes affair: the pebble in Éric Dupond-Moretti's shoe
Throughout the investigation, Éric Dupond-Moretti repeated that he had only "
followed the recommendations of his administration
".
An argument that did not convince the public prosecutor: in May, he requested a trial against the minister.
The Attorney General at the Court of Cassation François Molins then ruled that there were "
sufficient charges
" against him for him to be tried.
In this event, it would be a first: if, since its creation in 1993, eight ministers and two secretaries of state have been referred to the CJR, none have been while still exercising their functions. to the government.
