2023-11-06 22:16:46
The Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, leaves the Paris courthouse after the opening hearing of his trial for “conflicts of interest and abuse of power”, in Paris, November 6, 2023. JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP
Eric Dupond-Moretti walks forward gravely, with a dark suit and expression, and walks with measured steps through the two rows of witnesses and the rare audience who were lucky enough to find a seat. The trial of the Minister of Justice, Keeper of the Seals, before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), began on Monday, November 6, and for ten days, under the gold and pomp of the first chamber of the Court of Justice. call from Paris.
In front of the minister, the president of the CJR Dominique Pauthe, his two assessors and the three substitutes. To his right, the twelve parliamentarians, six deputies and perhaps senators elected by their peers, who wear the black magistrate’s robe as required. On the mezzanine, a gaggle of journalists trying to see something between two columns.
The situation is serious, Eric Dupond-Moretti risks, on paper, five years of imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 euros for two “illegal taking of interests”. He is accused of having wanted revenge on four magistrates against whom he had attacked, as a lawyer, and this is the first time that a minister in office has been tried by the CJR, the only jurisdiction competent to judge crimes and misdemeanors of members of the government.
Twenty-three witnesses
The president listed the twenty-three witnesses, most of them magistrates, but also Jean Castex, former prime minister, and Nicole Belloubet, former Keeper of the Seals. The president summarized the case, two thousand minutes, for an hour and a quarter, in a necessarily monotone voice. The accused takes notes, as do the parliamentarians when their phone gives them a moment.
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The Keeper of the Seals is accused of having ordered an administrative – pre-disciplinary – investigation against judge Edouard Levrault, who, in Monaco, was a little too interested in the affairs of the Russian billionaire president of the football club, and the director of the local judicial police – Me Dupond-Moretti had been their lawyer, discreetly for the first, briefly for the second.
He is also accused of having ordered the same investigation against three members of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), who had authorized the scanning of fadettes (detailed invoices) from his telephone to find out if he had not warned his friend Thierry Herzog, Nicolas Sarkozy’s lawyer, that he was wiretapped. Three of these magistrates were referred to the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM), which concluded that there was no disciplinary offense against them.
“I intend to defend myself firmly”
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