There will be no disciplinary action against him. The Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) indeed cleared, Thursday, September 15, the former investigating judge of Monaco Edouard Levrault, against whom disciplinary proceedings had been initiated by the executive, on the initiative of the guard of the seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti.
What a magistrate “did not exceed the limits of his freedom of expression. Therefore, no disciplinary breach can be blamed on him.said the CSM in its decision, adding that Mr. Levrault had spoken “in a non-excessive manner, without disclosing secret information, on a subject of general interest”.
Reproaches of breach of his “duty of reserve”
Shortly after his appointment to the Ministry of Justice in the summer of 2020, Mr. Dupond-Moretti had launched administrative investigations against four magistrates, including Mr. Levrault, with whom he had dealt as a lawyer and whom he had denounced. what he described as methods of « cow-boy ».
It is the triggering of these investigations that is worth to the Keeper of the Seals to be indicted today for “illegal taking of interests”. The conditions under which Eric Dupond-Moretti had ordered these investigations will possibly be examined by the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) in 2023.
The Minister of Justice reproached Edouard Levrault for having failed to “his duties of reserve and delicacy” for remarks made in a television report about his files in Monaco, after the non-renewal of his secondment by the authorities of the principality.
In this report broadcast on France 3 in June 2020, the magistrate wondered in particular whether the judges seconded to Monaco benefited from the means “in such a way as to ensure and guarantee [leur] independence “. Mr. Levrault had notably been responsible for an investigation in which one of the indicted was defended by Mr. Dupond-Moretti. The judge also conceded « a certain feeling of abandonment » and had wondered whether the independence of magistrates seconded to Monaco “had not been sacrificed to diplomatic relations”.
In its decision, the CSM considers that the speech of Mr. Levrault “was of particular interest to public debate and citizens”that the duty of reserve imposed on judges ” could not [les] reduce (…) silence or conformism”. The court also asserts that by ordering an administrative investigation against this judge, the Keeper of the Seals had “found in an objective situation of conflict of interest”.
Initially, Mr. Levrault had also been accused of having “violated the secrecy of the instruction” during this same television report. But this grievance was finally abandoned in the spring of 2021 when the CSM was referred to it by the Prime Minister at the time, Jean Castex, who had inherited these files to deal with the possible conflict of interest of Mr. Dupond-Moretti.
At the hearing, at the end of August, the services of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called on the CSM to “hold back grievances” against Mr. Levrault while considering that” there [avait] not subject to sanctions”. The magistrate, now vice-president of the Nice judicial court, had assured him that he had “failed in his duties as a magistrate neither in Monaco nor in France”.
Three other investigations targeting magistrates
The president of the Syndicat de la magistrature (SM), Kim Reuflet, reacted Thursday after the CSM’s decision to Agence France-Presse, saying: “We are reassured by the decision of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, which is the guarantor of the independence of justice and which put an end to a case which we consider to be completely revolting”.
In a statement, the Union of Judges (USM), for its part, “greeted” the decision which, according to her, “puts an end to two years of a procedure initiated by the Keeper of the Seals under conditions that are questionable to say the least”.
The three other disciplinary investigations launched by the executive target magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office who had had the detailed telephone bills examined (« fadettes ») lawyers, including Mr. Dupond-Moretti, to identify a possible mole in the wiretapping case involving former President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The former head of the PNF Eliane Houlette must thus appear before the disciplinary panel on September 26 and 27, after her former deputy Patrice Amar whose hearing is scheduled for September 20 and 21. A first magistrate, Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss, was definitively cleared by the CSM.