2023-07-28 14:04:24
The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, February 24, 2022. JOEL SAGET / AFP
The Court of Cassation rejected, Friday, July 28, the appeals filed by the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, against his referral to the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) for illegal taking of interest. The highest French judicial court therefore validates the referral order of the CJR’s investigating committee, which opens the way to a trial before it for the Keeper of the Seals.
Mr. Dupond-Moretti demanded the return of the file to the investigating magistrates for irregularities. His lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, had denounced the “procedural errors” of the CJR during its investigation, and requested the quashing of several decisions of the investigating committee, so that his client be treated as “a litigant like the others”.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Eric Dupond-Moretti referred to justice for “illegal taking of interests”: the Court of Cassation considers the appeals of the Keeper of the Seals
Mr. Dupond-Moretti, confirmed in his post during the recent reshuffle, is suspected to have taken advantage of his position as a minister to settle scores with magistrates, whom he had opposed in his first life as a lawyer. The Union of Magistrates and the Syndicate of the Judiciary, had filed a complaint with the CJR in the fall of 2020 against the minister, whom they accused of having used his prerogatives to settle his accounts. What Eric Dupond-Moretti vigorously disputes. The commission of instruction of the CJR, the only jurisdiction able to prosecute and judge the ministers for acts committed in the exercise of their functions, had ordered at the beginning of October 2022 his referral to trial before its formation of judgment.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers Dupond-Moretti case: the Court of Justice of the Republic orders the remand to trial of the Keeper of the Seals for “illegal taking of interests”
Patrice Spinosi had defended during the hearing in early July, seven appeals against decisions or irregularities which would have appeared during the procedure, and an eighth against the October dismissal judgment. Throughout this judicial investigation opened at the start of 2021, the minister repeated that he had only done “follow the recommendations of his administration” by triggering investigations against magistrates, and denounced an instruction from the CJR against him.
#Court #Cassation #rejects #appeals #Eric #DupondMoretti #opens #trial #Minister #Justice #illegal #interests