In November 2021, the Court, seized by two Syrians arrested in France, had nevertheless considered that France was incompetent in one of the two cases.
The Court of Cassation confirmed, Friday, May 12, the universal jurisdiction of French justice to prosecute foreign perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed outside France against foreign nationals.
“The Court recognizes that French justice has ‘universal jurisdiction’ in two cases concerning Syria”wrote in a press release the highest judicial court after having rendered two judgments specifying the conditions under which French justice was competent.
It had been seized of appeals by two Syrians. One had been filed by Abdulhamid Chaban, a former soldier arrested in France and indicted for complicity in crimes against humanity in February 2019, and the other by Majdi Nema, former spokesperson for the Syrian rebel group Jaysh al- Islam (Army of Islam), prosecuted for torture and war crimes.
“It’s a victory and a relief”
In November 2021, the Court, already seized of the Chaban case, had considered that French justice was incompetent in this case, invoking the principle of “dual criminality” provided for in the law of August 9, 2010. Crimes against humanity and war crimes must be recognized in the country of origin of a suspect that France intends to prosecute.
However, Syria does not recognize these crimes and has not ratified the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court. This judgment had caused an earthquake in the legal world and human rights organizations.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), a civil party, had notably opposed for a procedural reason, allowing the case to be returned to the Court of Cassation. With franceinfo, the lawyer of the FIDH, Clémence Bectarte, welcomes the decision of Friday.
“The Court took up all the arguments that we had defended. This is a victory and a great relief, in particular for the victims of international crimes”she reacts. “However, we must not forget that we should not have come to this. The law of August 9, 2010 is a bad law, a problematic law. We always call for it to be modified”, says the lawyer.
Continuation of judicial information
In the case of Majdi Nema, the Paris Court of Appeal upheld its indictment in April 2022, finding that Syrian law provided “by equivalence” several war crimes and offenses defined in the French penal code. The Court of Cassation followed this position on Friday, therefore returning to the one previously adopted in the Chaban case.
“For there to be dual incrimination, it is not necessary that the facts relating in France to offenses of crimes against humanity or war crimes are qualified in an identical manner by the laws of the foreign country”, ruled the Court. Both appeals were dismissed, allowing the two judicial inquiries to proceed. Clémence Bectarte still hopes “a dismissal before the Assizes for Majdi Nema”.