“Statistics everywhere, justice nowhere.
"Who wants to be judged after midnight?"
Brandishing these panels and the flags of the main unions of magistrates and clerks, more than 150 magistrates and lawyers gathered, this Tuesday noon, in front of the Nanterre judicial court.
A meeting organized a year after the Call of 3000, this platform signed by 3,000 magistrates in November 2021, now covered with some 8,000 signatures, expressing the malaise of a judiciary in pain and loss of meaning.
The mobilization denouncing today "a discount justice" resonates singularly in the Nanterre court, shaken by the death of Marie Truchet, the judge who died on October 18 in the middle of an immediate appearance hearing.
Another panel emerges from the crowd, with this inscription: "Justice for Mary".
Because in this court, many of them consider that overwork killed their colleague.
Even if the autopsy reveals a death caused by "cardiovascular failure resulting from a pathological condition", let the prosecution know.
Alerts not heard
“I do not enter into these considerations, indicates Sylvie Borrel, regional secretary of the Syndicate of the magistrature.
But what is certain is that Marie Truchet was overworked, like many magistrates.
And that despite the alerts, very little has changed in a year.
We continue hearings after 10 p.m.
This weighs on litigants and on the health of magistrates.
Are we waiting for the judges to fall in court?
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“We do not want to instrumentalize the tragic death of Marie, comments for her part Viviane Brethenoux, regional delegate of the Union of the magistrature (USM), while noting that “the drama draws attention to Nanterre”.
It is true that after a multitude of alerts - in particular the list of "impossibilities to do", drawn up by the magistrates and clerks last February, announcing that they could no longer assume certain tasks and the signing of motions -, c t was after the death of the judge that five additional posts were assigned to the court.
Read alsoMagistrates, lawyers and clerks mobilize in the street against “cheap justice”
“The injunctions are constantly contradictory.
Between what to judge and the means we have, it is not possible”, continues Viviane Brethenoux, who calls for “the reduction of activity so that it corresponds to capacity”.
A request expressed in the press release common to 19 unions of magistrates and clerks calling for the mobilization of the day.
Anger is also brewing among the clerks.
“The degradation is not new.
It's been ten years since it started, ”says Alain Richard, of Unsa judicial services.
