The Keeper of the Seals detailed in the Council of Ministers on Wednesday his programming and orientation bill, which plans to give justice more budgetary and human resources.
It is the result of a year and a half of work within the framework of the Estates General of Justice. Eric Dupond-Moretti presented, Wednesday, May 3 in the Council of Ministers, two texts which aim to modernize the system: the orientation and programming bill for justice and the organic bill on the status of the judiciary. . Both will be debated in Parliament in June. “We heard what our compatriots, magistrates and justice personnel were saying”assured the Keeper of the Seals in an interview with AFP.
In July 2022, after eight months of consultation and after a column published in The world signed by thousands of magistrates shouting their “suffering”the report of the Estates General established the“state of disrepair” of a justice otherwise perceived as “too slowly” speak French.
“The object, for me, is a more protective justice, a faster, more efficient justice”, summarized the Keeper of the Seals, reaffirming his “ambition to halve” procedural delays, both for civil and criminal justice. We summarize for you what these two bills contain.
Massive recruitments
The orientation and programming bill for justice ratifies a “historic increase” of the justice budget (+21% over the entire five-year period). It will increase from 9.6 billion euros in 2023 to nearly 11 billion within four years The increase must in particular finance the creation of 10,000 positions, including 1,500 magistrates and 1,500 clerks, by 2027. “We are going to hire more magistrates in five years than in the last 20 years”says Eric Dupond-Moretti.
Better supported magistrates
To enhance the attractiveness of the judiciary, the draft organic law provides for a reform of access routes, which will be open to new profiles. People with previous work experience will be able to access it more easily. “We are talking about lawyers, ‘assistant lawyers’, but also the famous 2,000 contract workers that we have recruited [en 2020 et 2021]“, specifies the chancellery to franceinfo.
To succeed in recruiting 1,500 additional magistrates, “we will continue to go through the classic training of the National School of the Judiciary (ENM), whose numbers are constantly being increased, but we will also put in place simplified procedures for legal professionals”adds the ministry.
The reform also provides for the creation of a new function, that of “justice attachés”, to help magistrates in their daily tasks. Civil servants or contractors, they will replace the current “assistant lawyers”, with a more precarious status and without initial training. They “will receive ENM training and take an oath to be fully integrated into the judicial community”says Eric Dupond-Moretti to 20 minutes.
In the penitentiary, contract agents may be recruited, without necessarily having a baccalaureate, to “assist” supervisors and thus alleviate the recruitment crisis.
Some 15,000 additional places in prisons
Eric Dupond-Moretti again mentioned the plan to build 15,000 prison places expected by 2027. To achieve this, three new prison establishments were inaugurated last year and six will be this year. “About fifty new prison establishments will be operational by 2027″, details the chancellery at franceinfo.
These new places should make it possible to stem prison overcrowding, which reached a new historic record on April 1 with 73,080 detainees for 60,899 operational places, i.e. a density of 120%. On this point, Eric Dupond-Moretti did not follow the recommendations of the Estates General, which envisaged “regulate” the prison population – i.e. to incarcerate less systematically – in the event of exceeding a threshold of “major overcrowding” in an establishment. “It’s not fair and it doesn’t make sense”swept the Keeper of the Seals to AFP.
A revised and corrected criminal procedure
The orientation and programming bill also authorizes the government to proceed by ordinance to a “rewrite” of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to simplify “a tool that has become unreadable”. This code has grown from 800 to more than 2,400 articles since it came into force in 1959.
The reform already provides for the “simplification” certain rules of procedure: extended night searches in criminal matters, new rights for persons placed under the intermediate status of assisted witness, videoconference for the assistance of an interpreter or the medical examination of a person in custody, placement remote tapping in the context of forensic investigations.
However, it will be necessary to wait for the end of the work of the committee of experts in charge of this project, launched in January and expected to last at least a year and a half. A follow-up of their discussions by a group of parliamentarians will be “shortly” put in place.
Tighter powers for the judge of freedoms and detention
The liberty and detention judge (JLD), whose volume of cases handled has continued to grow since 2000, will be able to refocus solely on criminal matters. At the discretion of the courts, the president of the court may decide to transfer his civil powers – keeping foreigners in an irregular situation in administrative detention, forced hospitalizations – to another judge of the court.
Experimentation with new commercial courts
Another novelty provided for by the planning and orientation law: “economic activity courts” will be tested in nine to twelve jurisdictions for four years “for all amicable and collective procedures”, emphasizes the Ministry of Justice. They will have broader powers compared to the commercial courts, in particular for farmers and certain liberal professions.
To seize these courts, the plaintiff will have to pay a “contribution for economic justice”, which will be reimbursed if the two parties reach an amicable settlement of the conflict. This contribution will contribute in particular to the legal aid budget.