The magistrates are in the street Wednesday, December 14, which is very rare. A day of so-called “general” mobilization of the profession, joined by clerks and other officials of the justice system, as well as lawyers. In total, seventeen unions and associations joined the call. In the region, rallies are planned in front of courthouses but in Paris, demonstrators will be in front of the Ministry of Finance in the middle of the day. Because the malaise of the profession stems, according to these professionals, from very insufficient budgets and staff. At the beginnings of discontent, a simple column, published three weeks ago in the newspaper The world on the initiative of nine young judges who say they themselves have been surprised and overwhelmed by the success of their business.
Today 7,735 magistrates – two thirds of the profession – have affixed their names to the bottom of this call almost synonymous with a distress call. These young judges and prosecutors say they are in an infernal dilemma: either they judge quickly and “empty stocks”, as they say in their jargon, that is to say they reduce the number of pending cases. But in this case, they admit to judging badly, without listening to the litigants, against the clock. Either way, they take the time to listen to the victims and the defendants, but in this case they do so within a timeframe which is lengthening and becomes unbearable for all parties. We have recently seen judges postpone hearings in 2023 or even in 2024 as the agendas are overflowing.
The nine authors of this forum reacted after the suicide in the summer of 2021 of one of their colleagues Charlotte, 29, in the jurisdiction of Béthune. Charlotte had warned several times about her situation of distress at work unable to deliver quality justice. She was placed judge, in short a replacement. It has become the symbol of the burnout of the profession. “Beyond the suffering that Charlotte had expressed, we also wanted to say that she was not alone, explains Manon Lefebvre, deputy prosecutor in Boulogne-sur-Mer and who was with Charlotte at the School of Magistrates, then then in jurisdiction in Marseille. She wanted to do her job well. She ran into the inability to do it right, obviously it creates suffering. “
“We joined this profession to do justice correctly: to see that we do not succeed, it is very difficult.”
Manon Lefebvre, magistrateto franceinfo
“We should not sleep at night, work on weekends or holidays, and even then, I think we would not manage to do justice such as we should manage to do it, continues Manon Lefebvre. Sometimes there is a feeling of shame to tell yourself this is not quality work I know that a litigant will suffer and I have no choice. When you divorce people or when you settle on unpaid rents, you are taking risks on people’s lives. “
At the bottom of the problem, according to Manon and the others, there is the lack of magistrates. There are 8,600 judges for 67 million inhabitants. France is just ahead of Poland at the bottom of the ranking of justice budgets in Europe. There is less than 5 euros spent per inhabitant per year while the European average is above 7 euros.
This impoverished justice is a reality that young judges who have left school take in the face when they discover it. After 31 months of training and years of effort, it’s disillusionment or slap in the face. For example, a future judge learns at the school of the magistrature to write reasons for each of the judgments that he renders to explain his decisions. The reality once they’re in place is that they don’t have the time and have to settle for two or three lines. “We didn’t sign up for that”, these young people are essentially saying. Some even come to resign, like Floriane Chambert after two years of practice and a few months of sick leave: “There is a world between what we are taught at school and what is the reality of the exercise. Having so little time to listen to even the litigant is a kind of mistreatment. In fact, we hardly give them a voice. There are cases where it only lasts fifteen minutes, it is not serious. How can we say that it is good justice that we do when we do justice at midnight when we have been sitting in the same seat for 14 hours. It was a daily frustration. To condone all that, it was unbearable. “
“I experienced a loss of meaning. I told myself I don’t help people by doing this job. Which is still a shame because that’s why I wanted to be a magistrate.”
Floriane Chambert, ex-magistrateto franceinfo
Young judges who say they are disappointed and frustrated. Languages are loosened throughout the profession in a completely new way. We have thus seen the appearance of a hashtag that has been widely relayed on social networks in recent days: #justicemalade
Exceptionally, the highest court in the country has just expressed its support for the magistrates mobilized: the magistrates of the Court of Cassation left their traditional reserve to adopt a motion in a general assembly to denounce the despair of the actors of justice.
The historic motion adopted this morning by the magistrates of the Court of Cassation in a general assembly: “let us solemnly affirm that the Court of Cassation cannot remain silent at a time when despair affects those who are trying to do the work of justice” pic.twitter.com/vDDN2fw7K4
– SMagistrature (@SMagistrature) December 13, 2021
This despair is measured daily by those who provide continuing education for sitting magistrates. It is when they arrive for a training course in Paris that the professionals allow themselves to crack. “It is a space of freedom where colleagues come to empty their bags to say things that they could not say in court”, says Youssef Badr, an executive at the School of Magistrates, former spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice and also a signatory of the platform. During internships, magistrates “tell what they experience on a daily basis, we are sometimes stunned by what we hear. The examples are available in spades.”
“The fact of having late hearings, it is abnormal for the magistrates obviously, but for the litigant who made 48 hours of custody, lived the wait at night at the deposit, is worried for his future , has not eaten and has not changed, this is abnormal in a country like France. “
Youssef Badrto franceinfo
“These are things that have been known for a very long time, continues Youssef Badr. Go see a hearing and look at the number of cases and the time taken by the magistrate, if he does not want to try people at 11 p.m. or midnight, it’s dizzying. ” Vertigo, a message that the Minister of Justice says he hears and takes into account. Eric Dupond-Moretti who, Monday, during a press conference, reminded that the budget of Justice has never increased as much as over the past five years. He explains having repaired the most glaring emergencies. He intends to continue the work with his “States General of Justice”, launched in October. States general yet shunned, boycotted, even, sometimes, by the magistrates.