Eric Dupond-Moretti will not appoint the next prosecutor at the Court of Cassation

The Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti once again circumvents the difficulties linked to his referral to trial before the Court of Justice of the Republic. A decree was published on Wednesday February 15 in the official journal allowing him to withdraw from certain attributions in favor of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. Each time, the idea is not to find oneself in a situation of conflict of interest. This time, he renounces certain attributions in terms of career monitoring and the appointment of magistrates. Without this decree, the Minister of Justice would have found himself in an inextricable situation before the summer.

Next June, one of the highest magistrates in France, François Molins, public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, will retire. In theory, it is up to the Keeper of the Seals to propose to the President of the Republic the name of a replacement. The problem is that the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation is the one who represents the prosecution before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR). Court which sent the Keeper of the Seals to trial: in short, Eric Dupond-Moretti should have participated in the appointment of his future accuser. One can hardly imagine a greater conflict of interest.

A “grotesque situation”, according to the Syndicate of the judiciary

The Keeper of the Seals is accused of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates whom he had opposed when he was a lawyer. He is sent to trial before the CJR for illegal taking of interests.

With the approach of the nomination of the successor of François Molins, certain commentators thought inescapable a resignation of the Keeper of the Seals. But the decree published on Wednesday shows that this is not an option for Eric Dupond-Moretti. The decree indicates that the Keeper of the Seals will henceforth know nothing of the career or the status of the magistrates participating in the procedures in which he is implicated. It is the Prime Minister who takes over these powers.

“All this weakens the function, denounces Sandra Peralta, national secretary of the Syndicat de la magistrature. He puts himself in a ludicrous situation where potential conflict of interest situations accumulate so much that he can no longer make certain decisions. This weakens his role as Keeper of the Seals. This has an impact on the judicial institution, which is also weakening. We wonder what will be next. Will we soon have a new decree that will again list the powers that are withdrawn from it? How far will the list go, and at what cost?

In the entourage of the Keeper of the Seals, it is emphasized that the dismissal of Eric Dupond-Moretti on trial is, in any case, not yet final, his lawyers having not exhausted all remedies. They lodged an appeal in cassation.