Europe 1 with AFP 6:25 p.m., May 10, 2022, modified at 6:26 p.m., May 10, 2022

The public prosecutor ruled that there were "sufficient charges" against the Keeper of the Seals to refer him to the court of the CJR, the only court authorized to prosecute and try ministers for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions.

The public prosecutor of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) announced on Tuesday that it had requested the referral to the Court of the former lawyer and current Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti, indicted for illegal taking of interests.

The Minister of Justice is suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble when he was a lawyer in two cases.

According to a press release from the general prosecutor's office at the Court of Cassation, the public prosecutor ruled that there were "sufficient charges" against the Keeper of the Seals to refer him to the court of the CJR, the only court empowered to prosecute and judge. ministers for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions.

Indicted since July 2021

The final decision on a possible referral of the Minister to the CJR's judgment panel now rests with the CJR's investigation committee. 

Éric Dupond-Moretti, appointed to the government in the summer of 2020, has been indicted for acts of illegal taking of interest since July 2021. Complaints from magistrates' unions and the anti-corruption association Anticor, denouncing two conflict situations of interest since his arrival at the Chancellery, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation.

Summoned in March and April by the magistrates of the CJR on the two files, he refused to answer their questions.

Two cases in question

The first file concerns the administrative investigation that he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office (PNF) who had had his detailed telephone bills peeled ("fadettes") when he was still a star of the bar.

In the other, he is accused of having instituted administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Édouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients and whose methods he had criticized. cowboy".

Éric Dupond-Moretti has always insisted that he had only "followed the recommendations" of his administration.