It is a deaf anger which is expressed almost everywhere in France, in the world of justice.

The magistrates are outraged by the opening of an administrative investigation against three of their colleagues from the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) ordered by the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti. 

As part of a motion adopted at an extraordinary general meeting, which AFP was able to consult, the magistrates of the Paris judicial court denounced, Monday, September 28, a "maneuver of destabilization and intimidation of the judicial institution" from the Minister of Justice

The former president of the PNF, Eliane Houlette, as well as two anti-corruption magistrates, the vice-prosecutor Patrice Amar and the deputy prosecutor Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss, are targeted by an investigation by the General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ) which had submitted a first report. 

The IGJ implicated the PNF, who had peeled the telephone records ("fadettes") of tenors of the bar, including Eric Dupond-Moretti.

This measure was ordered by the PNF to try to identify the "mole" who could have informed Nicolas Sarkozy and his lawyer Thierry Herzog that they were wiretapped in an investigation for suspicions of corruption of a magistrate.

The trial in this case is scheduled for November 23 to December 10.

The administrative investigation, ordered on September 18 by Éric Dupond-Moretti, now Minister of Justice, is a first step in a possible disciplinary procedure before the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM).

A "maneuver to destabilize the judicial institution"

Since then, French magistrates have continued to express their anger.

They call on the "President of the Republic to act responsibly as the constitutional guarantor of the independence of the judicial authority vis-à-vis a Minister of Justice who has definitively lost all credibility and destroying the bond of trust that must unite the citizens to the justice".

According to the Union Syndicale des Magistrates (USM) and the Syndicat de la Magistrature (SM), several courts, including Metz and Nantes, support the appeal of the magistrates, as in Marseille, Mulhouse, Grenoble, Clermont-Ferrand or Agen. 

"Lack of professional rigor"

Monday, Eric Dupond-Moretti justified the opening of the administrative investigation by the "lack of professional rigor" and the "lack of loyalty" highlighted by the General Inspectorate of Justice.

"I did not order anything and I have no conflict of interest in it. We are in a great democracy, the unions have their expression and I respect it. But I say what I have to say and as a minister, I will not hush up any business, "he defended in an interview with the Parisian.

Arguments rejected by the Parisian magistrates, who denounced in their motion "a major conflict of interest" for the Minister of Justice.

"The Minister of Justice, under cover of a misleading speech of openness and transparency, does not hesitate to sacrifice respect for our fundamental principles, including the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, for the benefit of of strictly private interests, ”they say.

With AFP 

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