[ad_1]
The Minister of Justice Eric Dupont-Moretti appears Friday before the Court of Justice of the Republic. He will be questioned and could be accused of abuse of power, setting a very delicate precedent for a sitting justice minister.
He denies accusations that he used his post as justice minister to settle scores with opponents dating from his time as a leading lawyer.
Investigators spent 15 hours searching his office at the Justice Ministry on July 1, looking for evidence related to the allegations, which relate to an administrative investigation he ordered against three magistrates.
Hybrid terrain
The tribunal, a bizarre legal-political hybrid, was created in 1993 to respond to public anger that ministers whose actions and decisions caused hundreds of deaths during what became the tainted blood scandal, have not been brought to justice.
In his very controversial first verdict in 1999, former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and his Minister of Social Affairs, Georgina Dufoix, both charged with manslaughter for their role in the tainted blood affair, were found “responsible but not guilty “.
At the same time, other people involved in the scandal who were NOT ministers were tried by ordinary criminal courts and received prison terms.
The court was immediately criticized. Judging ministers who make decisions that ordinary citizens would never have to make is not easy, but public law professor Cécile Guérin-Bargues, who has reviewed numerous court rulings and wrote a book on the subject. , asserts that its existence creates a “two-tier system”.
Witnesses are not obliged to speak under oath and the decisions of the CRJ are taken after the secret ballot of three professional magistrates and 12 parliamentarians. There is no appeal system.
The 12 parliamentarians could be colleagues of the ministers on trial and in the case of Dupont-Moretti, two deputies from the ruling LaRem party of Emmanuel Macron resigned from their posts at the CJR last week, citing a possible conflict of interest.
Covid cases to come
President Macron and his predecessor François Hollande both promised to abolish the court but never succeeded.
The tribunal works slowly and hears relatively few cases but since the Covid-19 crisis, 166 complaints about ministers’ handling of the pandemic have been filed with the tribunal.
Among them are cases concerning the former Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn, the current Minister of Health Olivier Véran and the former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
Source link
