Suspicion of conflict of interest: Eric Dupond-Moretti summoned for possible indictment

Published on : 07/16/2021 – 09:28

A first. The Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, is expected, Friday, July 16, at the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) to be questioned by the magistrates responsible for investigating possible conflicts of interest with his former activities. lawyer. An unprecedented situation for a sitting Minister of Justice. The member of the government is summoned at 9 a.m. for an interrogation which can last all day and end with his indictment.

“Extremely serene”

His summons was given to him during an extremely rare search of the Chancellery on July 1, carried out for fifteen hours by about twenty gendarmes from the Paris research section, with magistrates from the CJR, the only court empowered to prosecute and judge. ministers for offenses committed in the course of their duties. “Extremely serene”, the minister is, according to his entourage, “combative” and “determined to explain himself”, alongside his three lawyers.

In this case, Eric Dupond-Moretti is suspected of having taken advantage of his function as Keeper of the Seals to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had trouble when he was a lawyer, which the minister refutes.

The CJR opened a judicial investigation in January for “illegal taking of interests” after receiving complaints from the three magistrates’ unions and the Anticor association denouncing situations of conflict of interest in two cases.

“Methods of barbouzes”

The first concerns the administrative investigation ordered in September by the Minister of Justice against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) who had his detailed telephone records (“fadettes”) scrutinized when he was still a star in the courtroom.

The PNF then sought to flush out a “mole” who had been able to inform Nicolas Sarkozy and his counsel Thierry Herzog – a friend of Eric Dupond-Moretti – that they were wiretapped in the so-called “Bismuth” corruption affair, and who earned in March a historic conviction to the former head of state.

Vilifying the “barbouzes methods” of the anti-corruption prosecution, Eric Dupond-Moretti had filed a complaint, before withdrawing it on the evening of his appointment as Minister of Justice, July 6, 2020.

In the second case, the Minister of Justice is accused of having instituted administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Édouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients and whose actions he criticized. “cowboy” methods after this magistrate spoke in a report.

Problematic interventions

The magistrates’ unions also reported to the investigating committee of the CJR three other interventions by the Minister of Justice that they considered problematic, including one in the fall with Corsican detainees when he had been the lawyer for one of them, Yvan Colonna.

But the CJR’s petitions commission issued an unfavorable opinion, refusing to order further information for these facts, according to a judicial source.

Eric Dupond-Moretti has always defended himself against any illegal taking of interests, insisting that he only “followed the recommendations” of his administration.

His defense requested, in vain, a postponement of the interrogation, considering that the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation François Molins – who opened the investigation at the CJR – was both judge and party. According to the minister’s lawyers, François Molins had recommended the opening of an administrative investigation and should therefore be heard as a witness in this case.

The potential conflicts of interest of the new Minister of Justice, raised upon his arrival at the Chancellery by the magistrates’ unions, had finally led at the end of October to remove him from the follow-up of his former affairs, now under the control of Matignon.

Political maneuver

Eric Dupond-Moretti accuses these same unions of “political maneuvers” in order “to obtain a new Minister of Justice”. “We do not play politics. At no time, in any way did we ask for the resignation of the minister,” retorts Céline Parisot, president of the USM, the majority union in the judiciary.

Would an indictment compromise the future of Eric Dupond-Moretti at the head of this royal ministry?

“He has the support of Emmanuel Macron and Jean Castex. He was also the personal choice of the President of the Republic, who can not go back,” comments a parliamentarian LREM.

On the contrary, a minister considers his situation “complicated, especially when one is Keeper of the Seals”.

The President of the Republic posed as “guarantor of the independence of justice”, Thursday while he was on the Tour de France.

“I think that the Keeper of the Seals has the same rights as all litigants, that is to say that of the presumption of innocence to be able to defend the rights which are his, and I think he is not healthy to have magistrates’ comments before decisions and to have press announcements before court decisions because the work of justice must be done in good order and in serenity “, declared Emmanuel Macron, who had promised to abolish the CJR, without completing the necessary constitutional review.

With AFP