2023-05-18 21:37:13
After a sanction, unprecedented for a former President of the Republic, pronounced in first instance then confirmed on appeal, Nicolas Sarkozy promises to defend himself before the Court of Cassation and before public opinion. The day after his sentence to three years in prison, including one year to be served under an electronic bracelet, for corruption and influence peddling in the wiretapping affair, the former head of state spoke on Thursday 18 May to denounce “political struggle” of “certain magistrates”, whom he accuses of having flouted “the essential principles of our democracy” with the aim of convicting him.
“I immediately knew that it would be a long-term fight to win, not only my cause, but the essential principles of our democracy which have been trampled underfoot”reacts Nicolas Sarkozy in an interview granted au Figarobelieving that his “right to impartial justice” was not respected.
The former president criticizes in particular the president of the court of appeal who sentenced him, Sophie Clément, for not having deported himself when she had “publicly questioned” in the past. “The president of the chamber who sentenced me attacked me by name in 2009 in an article in the Monde. Shouldn’t she have walked away, rather than judge a man she had publicly implicated so vehemently? »he says.
On January 14, 2009, Sophie Clément was an investigating judge at the financial center. She then spoke in The world to criticize, not Nicolas Sarkozy, but the content of the justice reform that the Head of State had just announced. This provided for the abolition of the irremovable and independent investigating judge, to entrust the prosecution alone, which answers to the Ministry of Justice, with the responsibility of carrying out judicial investigations.
While acknowledging that “the judge can be excessive, to be mistaken, Sophie Clément then criticized, like other magistrates, a bill likely to call into question the independence of justice. “With the system advocated by Nicolas Sarkozy, the contaminated blood affair would not have existed, nor would the Elf affair. There would no longer be a civil party, this procedure which gave rise to most political and financial affairs. The public prosecutor’s office would have to be masochistic and schizophrenic to launch proceedings that could harm the reason of state”, she said at the time, defending a point of view shared by other investigating judges testifying in the same article.
Faced with the outcry, the reform was finally abandoned before the end of Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year term.
In addition to his sentence to three years in prison, including one year, the former President of the Republic was deprived, Wednesday, of his civic rights for three years. The cassation appeal announced by Nicolas Sarkozy suspends all decisions taken by the Court of Appeal.
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