The Nanterre court found that this step was “neither necessary nor proportionate” and “therefore constituted an interference with freedom of expression”. Edwy Plenel, president and co-founder of Mediapart, welcomed this decision.
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Justice consecrates the freedom of the press. The court of Nanterre condemned, Wednesday July 7, the State for an attempted search carried out in 2019 in the premises of Mediapart within the framework of the Benalla affair. According to this judgment consulted by AFP, this search violated freedom of expression and the secrecy of sources. “The disputed search was neither necessary in a democratic society nor proportionate to the objective pursued within the meaning of the case law of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights)” on freedom of the press, the court ruled.
According to the judges, this search “therefore constituted an interference with the freedom of expression (…) all the more serious since a risk of breaching the secrecy of sources can only be conceived in exceptional circumstances”. Assigned by Mediapart, the State was ordered to pay the investigation site one euro in “full compensation for his damage”, to which are added 10,000 euros pursuant to Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure (legal costs), with an order for the provisional execution of the judgment. The Nanterre court, on the other hand, rejected the request for publication on the website of the Ministry of Justice requested by Mediapart.
On January 31, 2019, the site had published sound clips of a conversation between the ex-project manager of the Elysée Alexandre Benalla and the former employee of En Marche! Vincent Crase dated July 26, four days after their indictment in the May 1, 2018 violence case and in violation of their judicial review. The Paris prosecutor’s office had, in the following days, opened an investigation for “unlawful possession of devices or technical devices likely to allow the interception of telecommunications or conversations” and “invasion of the privacy of life private”. In this context, two prosecutors and three police officers had tried to search the premises of Mediapart, to obtain the recordings.
“We welcome this historic decision, which enshrines the freedom to inform and reminds the judicial authorities that the press is a place where we do not go with impunity”, reacted the lawyer of Mediapart, Emmanuel Tordjman. “Like freedom of expression, the media have protection and can only be touched with care and proportionality,” he said. “By sanctioning the abuse of state power, (the judgment) it recalls the vital necessity, in a democracy, of independent justice and a free press”reacted con side on the site of Mediapart Edwy Plenel, its president and co-founder.