Justice took this year an exceptional place in the programs of the candidates. However, it is rarely a topic of interest during presidential campaigns, unlike the theme of security. 2022 is no exception. But the deep crisis of justice, highlighted by the resounding tribune of the magistrates published in The world on November 23, 2021, forced the candidates to position themselves. As a result, there is unanimity, whatever the position on the political spectrum, on the need to recruit thousands of magistrates and clerks during the next five-year term. It is even a festival never seen in the matter.
By this yardstick, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen are the best bidders. The candidate of La France insoumise intends to create 13,000 magistrate posts, 20,000 clerk posts and recruit 5,000 prison integration and probation advisers and 6,000 judicial youth protection officers. The candidate of the National Rally puts forward the figure of 16,000 magistrates as a goal, or 7,000 more than today. This would require a much higher number of recruitments to compensate for retirements. The only other contender for the Elysée Palace to display a target in terms of the number of magistrates, the socialist Anne Hidalgo wants 12,000 in 2027 and intends to quickly complete the ongoing project on the evaluation of the workload to plan the recruitment needs of the following years.
The other candidates commit to hiring volumes and not job creation. Valérie Pécresse’s program is particularly ambitious. The Republican candidate speaks of the “Orsec plan” for justice and plans a 50% increase in the court budget in five years to bring it to 9 billion per year and recruit 16,000 people over the entire five-year period, including 5,000 magistrates (2,000 at the public prosecutor’s office), 3,000 clerks, 5,000 assistant lawyers and 3,000 technical staff. Emmanuel Macron is less precise and more modest on this ground.
Measures still under discussion
The only other point of unanimity in most programs is the creation of courts specializing in violence against women, or centers dedicated to it. Moreover, the simplification of criminal and civil procedures, in which everyone sees a solution for less slow justice, is such a vast project that announcing its opening does not commit much. Everything will depend on the choices made in the rewriting of these codes. Only Eric Zemmour believes he can complete the reform at the start of the five-year term.
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