The Marseille high court -
P. Magnien / 20 Minutes
Olivier Leurent, president of the court of Marseille, launches a cry of alarm in the face of the lack of means of his jurisdiction.
An audit with six controllers begins this week in Marseille.
A "cry of alarm" for justice in Marseille.
"If we do not do something strong in favor of Marseille, we will not be able to judge certain cases and we will approach a situation of denial of justice", alarmed the president of the court of the second French city in a meeting.
"The risk of denial of justice is on the one hand a feeling of impunity for the perpetrators, and then the absence of justice for the victims, or even the risk of repetition", explains to AFP and to
Le Monde
Olivier Leurent, arrived at the head of the third judicial court in France (after Paris and Bobigny) in August 2020.
This "cry of alarm" about the lack of resources, whether human - magistrates, clerks, specialist assistants, IT specialists - or equipment - ten courtrooms are missing - resonates at all levels of this institution called upon to render justice both to victims of work accidents and to settle complex cases of serious crime or public health involving up to 22 French departments.
"A forgotten jurisdiction"
"This failure to take into account very specialized litigation in the assessment of means, and for a long time, is striking when we take charge of this jurisdiction", underlined in January the prosecutor Dominique Laurens, who co-heads the jurisdiction with Olivier Leurent .
"We sometimes have the impression of being a forgotten jurisdiction," notes Florent Boitard, regional delegate of the Union Syndicale des Magistrates (USM).
He tells of the cases that must be put "in overload" in already heavy and long hearings in order to try to limit the delays, the lack of rooms which sometimes forces to move in full hearing to "pile up" at short notice in a another too narrow place and the impression of becoming "a judging machine".
If Marseille often makes the front page for its cases of violence linked to drug trafficking, the 7th specialized chamber "can no longer even hear" certain serious cases of criminal associations, deplores Olivier Leurent.
At trial, some cases are five years old and will sometimes have to wait another two years for a trial.
Judges sometimes find themselves without a clerk.
But Marseille is also "the largest social pole" in France, which judges disputes in daily life related to social benefits, disability, etc.
However, 17,000 cases are in stock.
It takes on average two and a half years for a work-related accident or disability case to be judged.
Audit from this week
Faced with this situation, the heads of the jurisdiction requested an audit of the Ministry of Justice, a preliminary finding before any possible action.
Six controllers begin their mission this week with a provisional report expected in June.
"The Minister of Justice has become aware that there is a structural dimensioning concern in Marseille," said Olivier Leurent, welcoming the arrival of three additional judges in 2020 and four announced in 2021.
"This is a strong sign but it will not solve the problem of Marseille justice," he adds, estimating that it would take 125 to 130 judges [those responsible for rendering court decisions] to "turn in a satisfying manner ".
There are currently 114.
11 million investments
Marseille, nicknamed "the Bobigny of the South" in the legal world, because of the volume of cases and the poverty of its population, has indeed obtained additional courtrooms for 2022, an investment of 11 million euros. , but she hopes for a strong personal gesture.
Especially since his court, unlike Bobigny, sees the convergence of "very complex cases due to its interregional competence": financial crime and serious organized delinquency from Perpignan to Nice, military files from ten departments, international adoptions, ecological damage in the Mediterranean ...
If police reinforcements were recently announced, "all links in the criminal chain must be reinforced" on pain of "going badly or derailed", insists the president.
Who adds: "The feeling of denial of justice generates unrest in a city and it is a serious attack on the rule of law".
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