Regarding the additional penalty of ineligibility, the public prosecutor left it to the assessment of the Court of Justice of the Republic. This is the first time that a serving minister, especially of Justice, has appeared before this exceptional court.
A relentless indictment lasting more than three hours. The public prosecutor requested a one-year suspended prison sentence againstEric Dupond-Moretti, Wednesday November 15, before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR). The Minister of Justice has been on trial there for ten days for illegal taking of interests, an offense punishable by five years of imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 euros. Regarding the additional penalty of ineligibility, mandatory in the event of conviction, the prosecution left it to the discretion of the court, which can exempt the accused from it. “by specially reasoned decision”.
“At the end of these ten days of hearing, I, for my part, became convinced that the offense of illegal taking of interests was constituted”, asserted Attorney General Rémy Heitz during this two-voice indictment. While the CJR, made up of professional magistrates and parliamentarians, is accused of partiality in its decisions, the prosecutor began by emphasizing his own “impartiality” in that case. And this, despite the incongruity of having to bring the accusation against his supervisory minister. Rémy Heitz confided that he did not “never imagined having to one day hold the seat of the public prosecutor in a trial involving the current Minister of Justice”.
“I appreciate, Mr. Minister, the ordeal that this hearing represents for you, who are used to the courtrooms. Seeing you there, in civilian clothes among us, who are in dresses, does not please anyone.”
Rémy Heitz, attorney generalduring his indictment before the Court of Justice of the Republic
Once the superficial politeness had passed, the man who succeeded François Molins as Attorney General at the Court of Cassation presented his arguments against him. As a reminder, Eric Dupond-Moretti is accused of having ordered administrative investigations against four magistrates, with whom he had had disagreements when he was a lawyer. The famous criminal lawyer had even filed a complaint against three of them in the so-called fadettes affair, investigated by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF). Complaint withdrawn the same evening of his appointment to the Chancellery. Insufficient, according to the prosecution, to protect against a situation of conflict of interest.
Several alerts ignored, according to the prosecution
Applicant at the bar, with his back to the defendant, in order to see all of the fifteen judges of the court (three professional magistrates, 12 deputies and senators), Rémy Heitz first wanted to dispel “two curtains of smoke” agitated by the defense in this case. To know, “the hypothesis of a settling of scores” magistrates’ unions against a former lawyer “known for his unkind remarks towards” red dresses. And the theory according to which this procedure would be “the work” by François Molins, “disappointed not to have been a minister” of Justice. “A fable” Who “register”according to the high magistrate, “in a more global strategy of putting others on trial”.
With his colleague Philippe Lagauche, Rémy Heitz then endeavored to clarify before the court the contours of the illegal taking of interests, and to provide education on this complex offense, which has evolved with case law. This offense consists, for a “public official”to take advantage of a conflict of interest situation in which he finds himself. “If he abstains or withdraws in time, he avoids the commission of the crime of illegal taking of interests. If he ignores the obstacle and puts his personal interest to prevail in making a decision, he does not avoid it “summarized the public prosecutor.
In short, Eric Dupond-Moretti did not deport in time – the deportation decree to Matignon for these sensitive files was taken in October 2020, four months after his appointment – and ordered these administrative investigations when he would have could “refrain” or postpone this decision. “Was there an emergency?”asked Rémy Heitz, believing that “the problem of conflict of interest” had been identified by the minister himself and his entourage from the first day of his appointment. And the Attorney General lists several “orange and red indicators” ignored, according to him, by Eric Dupond-Moretti.
“The minister did not want to listen to the warnings. By opening these investigations, he took a step that he should never have taken. He stepped over this protective wall that our law requires to be impassable.”
Rémy Heitz, attorney generalduring the indictment before the Court of Justice of the Republic
If the public prosecutor admitted that “the desire to take revenge was not necessarily the minister’s sole source of decision-making”he, again, relied on the definition of illegal taking of interests to estimate that Eric Dupond-Moretti had surrendered “guilty” “of the act alone” that he has “knowingly performed the act constituting the material element of the offense”. Diverting Montaigne’s famous phrase on friendship, Rémy Heitz nevertheless made the minister’s enmity towards these four magistrates the main driving force behind this affair: “There is an offense because it was you, Mr. Moretti, and because it was them.”
A minister returned to his “responsibilities”
Before detailing the required sentence, the Attorney General swept aside the “last false debate” put forward by the minister in his defense: “the role of administration”. “The minister would only have followed instructions, but such a decision did not fall within the competence of his services”noted Rémy Heitz, seeing in this strategy “an ease, an escape”. While the minister’s entourage at the time took turns at the stand to explain how he had “groped” to find solutions to circumvent the situation of conflict of interest, the high magistrate referred the accused to “his responsibilities”.
“In this case, in my eyes, the minister was not well advised or protected from the risk of illegal taking of interests”tempered Rémy Heitz before driving the point home: “He was not well protected against his main enemy, himself.” Despite everything, we want to assert “exculpatory evidence” for the benefit of the minister and “the man behind the minister”the Attorney General recalled that these “acts had been committed at the start of a mandate during which he had invested very heavily in the service of the judicial institution”. But here again, the caress turned into a flick: “He spontaneously recognized that the conflict of interest had never been his obsession, we would have liked it to be more so.”
Seated behind, Eric Dupond-Moretti exchanged the ease of the lawyer for the silence of the accused in the face of the prosecution’s burden. His lawyers will plead on Thursday, before the decision is deliberated.