The vice-president of the union Cécile Mamelin welcomes the “measured” speech of Emmanuel Macron on the question of the police officers under investigation. However, she deplores the “pressure” exerted by certain police officers on the justice system.
For Cécile Mamelin, magistrate, vice-president of the Union of magistrates, Emmanuel Macron “was completely in his role“, Monday, July 24 at midday when he spoke from Nouméa on the file of the police officers indicted (including one placed in pre-trial detention) for violence. The Head of State recalled that “no one is above the law“while specifying the number of police officers injured during the urban riots. Invited on franceinfo, the magistrate declares that she “was waiting“this word from the Head of State. For Cécile Mamelin, the magistrates”are neither pro-police nor anti-police“and the reaction of some police unions is a”pressure” that can “undermine the independence of the judiciary“.
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franceinfo: Do you share the analysis made by Emmanuel Macron?
Cecile Mamelin : Yes quite. We expected a position from Macron. The climate of tension that we have felt for about two years now between the police and the justice system has deteriorated so much that a word was needed at the highest level of the State. This word was measured, it is exactly that of the magistrates we represent, that is to say that we must support the police who are faced with extremely difficult conditions and which have recently been, but we must also know how to ‘flush out’ illegitimate behavior, which does not meet the normal conditions of intervention, in circumstances that justice takes into account. Only one agent is in pre-trial detention, which means that justice has applied the rules of the code of criminal procedure. This is the right that all of our fellow citizens must respect.
“The fact that Emmanuel Macron recalled that no one is above the law is really a word that we were waiting for. He was completely in his role.”
Cecile Mamelinat franceinfo
What was your reaction to reading Le Parisien, when you discovered the words of the director general of the national police who wanted the release of the police officer placed in pre-trial detention?
This way of generalizing a statement while acknowledging that we know nothing about the file extremely offended me and I think it offended a lot of magistrates. We cannot consider that exceptional justice is needed for the police. They are particularly protected when they are subjected to violence since these are aggravating circumstances for the perpetrators. When they themselves exercise violence, some are legitimate because they represent order and they must both protect themselves and our fellow citizens when they are the object of attacks, but they must not exercise what is called illegitimate violence. Otherwise, we are no longer in a state of law. If that’s what some police say, it’s clearly not.
The independence of justice is threatened by the words of certain police officers or unions?
It’s a pressure that can seem intolerable. It is put on the examining magistrate, on the magistrate who placed in detention, on the Court of Appeal which possibly will have the occasion to examine this placement in detention. It is a pressure which is exerted and it is a way of attacking the independence of justice. We must stop with binary reasoning, magistrates are neither pro-police nor anti-police. They are there to dispense justice with legal texts. If it is necessary to change the law, it is not up to the magistrate to do so but to the legislator.