2023-11-10 23:08:00
Jean Castex, during the trial of Eric Dupond-Moretti, before the Court of Justice of the Republic in Paris, November 10, 2023. IVAN BRUN
The question is dry, but decisive: why did the Prime Minister take so long to issue a “deportation decree”, a decree which prohibits the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti from managing affairs of which he had had knowledge when he was a lawyer? The criminal lawyer was appointed Minister of Justice on July 6, 2020, the first deportation decree only took place on October 23, three others followed to complete it, the last taken by Elisabeth Borne. “A deportation decree should have been issued on July 7, former Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet noted with pleasure on November 8 before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR). Obviously, that’s what we’re saying to ourselves today. Eric Dupond-Moretti would not be in front of you. »
It was in fact before October 23, 2020 that Eric Dupond-Moretti ordered, on July 31, an administrative investigation, that is to say pre-disciplinary, against judge Edouard Levrault, expelled manu militari from Monaco, and a second investigation on September 18 against three magistrates from the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF). Jean Castex, then Prime Minister, came to blandly explain this on Friday November 10 before the CJR.
The man is round, good-natured and polite, quite satisfied with his management at Matignon, and suggests that a large part of the file has gone over his head. The affair of the PNF fadettes which caused a lot of noise before his appointment to Matignon in the summer of 2020? He hadn’t heard of it. “I previously dealt with deconfinement, a subject perhaps not as important”, jokes the former prime minister. Alerts from magistrates’ unions from July 7? Neither. The note from his chief of staff on July 16 which mentions “a risk of conflict of interest” of his minister? “I’m not aware of that. »
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Sympathy
“In the most solemn manner, declares Jean Castex, I can tell you that it did not seem necessary to me to issue a deportation decree at that time”especially since he has a lot of sympathy for his minister, a man “who has a chest”. On the other hand, when he learned in October 2020 that Anticor had filed a complaint against its Keeper of the Seals while the process of renewing the association’s authorization was underway at Place Vendôme, he issued the famous decree “to bring serenity to all this”.
Therefore, it is he “who gets the baby”, in this case the reports of administrative investigations ordered by his minister. Reports that he goes through for hours on end ” during the weekend “ – “I realize that this was a very delicate subject”notes the former prime minister, and “I have a few hours of flight time”. Finally, it was he who seized the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) in disciplinary training, against the judge of Monaco and two of the three magistrates of the PNF – against the opinion of the general inspection of justice, and in part that of the Directorate of Judicial Services. The CSM ultimately cleared all the magistrates, but Jean Castex took it with good humor: “if you read these decisions, you find several things on which I based my referral”, the former prime minister was satisfied. Who, on the other hand, has not noted that the CSM has emphasized on three occasions that “the Minister of Justice found himself in an objective situation of conflict of interest”.
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