“Very quickly, you completely forget that you are being filmed”

A real trial on television: for the first time, the public television channel France 3 broadcasts Wednesday, October 19, in the second part of the evening at 11:10 p.m., the premiere of “Justice in France”, a dive into the hearing for offenses of the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence.

>> Exclusive video. “Justice in France”: watch the first issue of the France 3 program in preview

The monthly program, at the heart of a court, is made possible by the law “for Confidence in Justice” promulgated last April: before, since 1954, it was forbidden to film the hearings and only about fifteen have it. summer, for the historical archives. This new law changes the game, for educational purposes.

At the time of the debates on this text carried by the Keeper of the Seals, some magistrates were worried about an upheaval in their work. However, Judge Castoldi, forty years in the judiciary including twelve as a judge, in Marseille then at the Court of Appeal of Aix-en-Provence, more than a thousand hearings on the clock, welcomed without hesitation these cameras, discreet and controlled from a distance.

“Honestly, I think it happened the way it usually does, explains the magistrate. Very quickly, you completely forget that you are being filmed, and that each of your gestures, such as biting your glasses, could possibly be considered significant.” “The risk, of course, is to leave an image which may be inaccurate, or even unfair, he notes. We don’t wear make-up, we don’t go to the hairdresser first and if I realize that I don’t hold myself up straight in my daily life, maybe I’ll make an effort, but what’s important is the image that it can give of the profession and the institution.”

It is the institution and its functioning that are shown, not the people judged. As required by law, their faces are blurred, the voices modified, the names covered by “beeps”. Fabrice Castoldi now encourages his fellow magistrates to allow themselves to be filmed, “let yourself be judged in a way”to share the reality of their profession.

“We are the first to take this risk, with my colleagues, by controlling nothing, neither business nor the public, continues Fabrice Castoldi, and if we have agreed to participate under these conditions, it is to try to show justice, which can concern everyone.”

“A program of this kind makes it possible to understand a little better that we are not in the sensational, that the magistrates know what they are talking about, that they prepare the files before, that they then reflect on the decisions that they will give back and that they motivate them.”

Fabrice Castoldi

at franceinfo

“There are appeals, cassation appeals, it is obviously a system that is very imperfect, points out the judge. But it’s a system that is still well regulated and filming an audience, it allows you to get an idea.” In this perspective of transparency and pedagogy, the France 3 program focuses on trials that receive little media coverage. After the ro-ro offenses in Aix-en-Provence, it will lead us in particular to over-indebtedness hearings and to the family court judge.

How can everyone be better informed?

Participate in the consultation initiated as part of the European project De facto on the Make.org platform. Franceinfo is the partner