Paris (AFP)

"Treason" and criminal misconduct at the origin of "significant institutional disorder": the prosecution requested Thursday a year suspended sentence against the former Minister of Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas, tried before the Court of Justice Justice of the Republic (RGC) for "breach of professional secrecy".

"The responsibility of a minister does not place it above the law." The Minister of Justice was subject to professional secrecy because of his functions "as a" depository "of information that he received only from the made his position as superior of the prosecution, at the "top of the chain" of secrecy, said the Attorney General François Molins to the Court.

The former socialist minister (January 2016-May 2017) is judged to have transmitted on May 4 and 5, 2017 to the deputy (then LR) Thierry Solère elements of the investigation which aimed at him for tax evasion and trading of influence, via Telegram encrypted messaging.

"An unprecedented practice", which makes Mr. Urvoas the eighth minister to appear since 1999 before the RGC, a controversial jurisdiction, the only one able to judge acts committed by members of the government in the exercise of their functions.

The former minister does not deny the materiality of the facts, but disputes that the documents transmitted are covered by any secret. He explained that the cards sent to him by the Directorate for Criminal Affairs and Pardons (DACG), which is the interface between chancery and prosecutors, were "filtered" by his services and thus released from secrecy.

"If you give me a document, it's for me to use it!", He repeated Thursday, citing his public mission of "defense of the judicial institution".

- "Major systemic effects" -

"Amazing defense What would one say if the Budget Minister came to explain that he is not subject to tax secrecy?" Asked François Molins.

"If we go to the end of this reasoning, why not forward information to mis en cause in narcotics cases or even terrorism?" Asked the former Paris prosecutor who was, for years, the face of French anti-terrorism during his press conferences on the jihadist attacks.

The prosecutor, he recalled, is "the only authority to communicate publicly" on cases in progress.

Opposing the arguments of the defense, which asserts that no law says that the custody of the seals is held incommunicado, the magistrate explained that there were "few designations (by law) of persons subject to secret, "except for the medical professions and the defense sector.

But there is no "legal vacuum", since the question of secrecy is addressed in Article 226-13 of the Penal Code, which, he recalls, punishes with one year's imprisonment " the disclosure of information of a secret nature by a person who is a depository of it either by state or profession, or by reason of a temporary function or mission ".

"This file has a certain gravity, since a keeper of the Seals (...), the ultimate hierarchical superior of the prosecutors, has betrayed the trust of those who are subordinate to him.It is also an emblematic file that raises the question of our system of information feedback (prosecutor's office) in particular cases, "said the magistrate.

"A relaxation would have major systemic effects" and "would sign the end of the public prosecutor's French," he warned, because "if there is no more shared secret, there is more confidence ", as all magistrates who testified at the trial said.

This trial, he said, is "unprecedented in your judicial annals".

He stands in "a doubly controversial context" while "some unjustly denounce (...) a politicization of justice," he noted, in an allusion to the statements of Jean-Luc Mélenchon on "political trials "; but also because of the "criticisms" made against the RGC, 12 of the 15 judges of the court being parliamentarians.

In view of the seriousness of the "institutional disorder" caused, but taking into account the almost "nonexistent" risk of recidivism, the Attorney General applied for the maximum sentence, fully suspended.

The defense will plead Friday.

© 2019 AFP