Emmanuel Macron launches the Estates General of Justice against the slowness of the courts

Stéphane Place 9:11 a.m., October 19, 2021

Emmanuel Macron launched the Estates General of Justice on Monday: five months of consultation to find concrete solutions to the slowness of the courts and restore the confidence of citizens.

Traveling in Vienne with the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, the Head of State attacked the slowness of the courts to restore the confidence of the French. 

As for health or safety previously, this vast consultation will bring together for several months the entire justice ecosystem (judges, prosecutors, clerks, auxiliaries, lawyers, agents bailiffs prison supervisors ...), as well as voluntary citizens, indicates the Elysee Palace.

"Far from appeasement and balance"

Referring to the indictment last month of the former Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, the head of state sounded the alarm.

"When officials, ministers, officials, elected officials find themselves cited in proceedings for a crisis that is still ongoing, we are far from appeasement and balance," Emmanuel Macron said in front of his audience in Chasseneuil-du -Poitou, on the outskirts of Poitiers.

"We must therefore redefine the terms of political responsibility and redefine the fields of criminal responsibility of officials, elected officials and ministers. I myself had brought at the beginning of my mandate the idea of ​​abolishing the Court of Justice of Republic. Circumstances make this reform obsolete today. But the logic remains more relevant than ever. "

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Proposals before spring

François Molins, the attorney general of the Court of Cassation, one of the highest magistrates in the country, recalled the need to find a "balance".

"The stake of all this, and that is what I think about, it is indeed always to find the good articulation, the good balance between the respect of the main principles and the requirements of good administration of justice", a declared the former Public Prosecutor.

Emmanuel Macron pleaded for "a public service of modern justice", thanks to "effectiveness" and "readability".

"The slowness, the cumbersome public service of justice does not satisfy anyone today, neither the victims, who have the feeling of generalized impunity, nor the police and gendarmes, who have the feeling of uselessness, nor the magistrates and lawyers, who experience the same frustration, not even the culprits, for whom, in too many cases, the sentence loses its meaning with the durations that I mentioned ", pleaded the Head of State.

On this question as on many others, an independent committee will submit a summary of the proposals of the Estates General of Justice before the end of winter.