Elisabeth Borne supports the anti-corruption association

2023-10-18 11:00:04

Obviously, the Anticor affair has an eminently political dimension. With its back against the wall, the anti-corruption association is currently fighting to regain its approval, a precious key which has allowed it, since 2015, to take legal action in cases of alleged corruption and breach of probity, particularly in the event of inaction of the parquet. On June 23, the Paris administrative court annulled, with retroactive effect, the order of April 2, 2021 renewing for three years the approval of Anticor, created in 2002 and engaged in 161 legal investigations in France.

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This decision arises from an appeal filed by a former member excluded from the association in 2020 and another member. The applicants had asked the court to annul the order of April 2, 2021 renewing the said approval of Anticor, calling into question the “selfless and independent character” activities of the association, “appreciated in view of the origin of its resources”.

For the applicants, the very wording of the order of April 2, 2021 poses a legal problem. And this, while the services of the Prime Minister at the time, Jean Castex, wrote that Anticor had “expressed the intention to use an auditor to increase the transparency of its operation, as well as an overhaul of its statutes and internal regulations”.

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In essence, the Paris administrative court found that Mr. Castex did not “could (…) be based on the circumstance that the association has undertaken to take corrective measures aimed at bringing itself into compliance with its obligations after the date of the approval decision.”

“No ambiguity” in Ms. Borne’s writings

Anticor has submitted a new application for approval to Matignon. Furthermore, the association will contest the June judgment before the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal, during a hearing scheduled for Thursday, October 19.

The situation could change on appeal to the extent that the public rapporteur has, this time, concluded that the applicants’ appeal should be rejected on the merits, relying in particular on the five pages of observations issued on October 3 to the administrative court of call by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne. In his writings, that The world consulted, Matignon considers that the Paris administrative court “committed an error of law as well as an error of interpretation” and demands the annulment of the judgment of June 23 as well as the dismissal of the applicants’ appeal.

Matignon’s support for Anticor could have a decisive influence. Ms. Borne underlines that the association has indeed put in place, before April 2021, a certain number of measures regarding transparency and information on its donors, as well as a “participatory reform of the statutes aimed at improving internal procedures”the creation of an ethics committee and the “recourse to an auditor”.

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