“It was essential to broadcast these images”, believes a former magistrate

The court reversed its decision on Friday to broadcast the videos of the rapes suffered by Gisèle Pelicot during the Mazan trial.

Denis Salas, former magistrate, secretary general of the French association for the history of justice, believes, Friday October 4 on franceinfo that he “was essential to broadcast these images”while the court reversed its decision to broadcast the videos of the rapes suffered by Gisèle Pelicot during the Mazan trial.

Finally, journalists and the public will be able to discover images of rape during the trial of Dominique Pelicot, accused of having drugged his wife to offer her to men recruited on the Internet. “We had a similar debate during the terrorism trials, notably at the Bataclan, where the discussion on the opportunity to broadcast images was very, very lively and ultimately, it was accepted, in particular at the request of the civil parties” , explains Denis Salas.

The backpedaling of the Vaucluse criminal court satisfies the former magistrate: “From the moment when the issue of these filmed images is to determine the role that each person played in this affair, in particular the degree of consent or non-consent of the victim through the vision of the images, it was essential to broadcast these images to the court” And “also to the public”.

According to him, “it is also in the courtroom that we construct our response to rape and images are part of it.” Denis Salas believes that there is no risk of disrupting the progress of the trial: “The dignity of the debate is respected, precisely because everyone has taken their responsibilities commensurate with the stakes of this trial.”

The former magistrate believes that the broadcast of the images will allow the truth to be revealed: “If we had organized the closed session, we would not have had access to the reality of the truth of this criminal act. It would have been tinged with a veil of ignorance. Whereas there, indeed, thanks to the journalists, thanks to the press, we will know exactly how these images were actually conceived and the scope they represent”, he assures.