The former head of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) Eliane Houlette and its current number 2 Patrice Amar were the subject of disciplinary proceedings initiated by the current Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti.
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New setback for the Keeper of the Seals. The former head of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) Eliane Houlette and its current number 2 Patrice Amar were cleared on Wednesday October 19 of disciplinary proceedings initiated by Eric Dupond-Moretti and which are worth to him to be sent back to trial. In two separate opinions, the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) considered that these two senior magistrates, whom the executive accused of “failures” linked in particular to the affair of the “fadettes”, had “committed no disciplinary fault” and that he “there is no place” to punish them.
The final decision now belongs to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, but this double opinion already sounds like a disavowal for Eric Dupond-Moretti, who initiated these lawsuits shortly after he entered government in July 2020. By taking these decisions, “the Keeper of the Seals, Minister of Justice, found himself in an objective situation of conflict of interest”writes the CSM in the notices published on Wednesday.
Just before arriving at Place Vendôme, Eric Dupond-Moretti had denounced the “barbouze” methods of the PNF, who had gone through some of his telephone records (“fadettes”) as part of investigations aimed at flushing out a mole who may have informed Nicolas Sarkozy that he was bugged. Opened under the supervision of Eliane Houlette and dismissed in 2019, this controversial investigation was carried out on the sidelines of the so-called “Bismuth” corruption case, involving the former head of state, his lawyer Thierry Herzog and a senior magistrate. All three were convicted at first instance and will be retried at the end of the year.
>> Case of the “wiretapping” of Nicolas Sarkozy: five questions on the “fadettes”, which again put the national financial prosecutor’s office in the embarrassment
Accusing the Keeper of the Seals of having used his ministerial functions to settle scores linked to his past as a lawyer, magistrates’ unions and the Anticor association had filed a complaint against him at the end of 2020, triggering the opening of an investigation. which led to his referral to the Court of Justice of the Republic for “illegal taking of interests”.