Suspicions of conflict of interest: the CJR rejects Eric Dupond-Moretti's requests

Europe 1 with AFP 5:36 p.m., June 14, 2022

The Court of Justice of the Republic on Tuesday rejected several requests from the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, indicted since July 2021 for illegal taking of interest, indicated the general prosecutor's office at the Court of Cassation, requested by the AFP.

Seized by the lawyers of the Keeper of the Seals, the CJR's investigating committee rejected their request to hear Céline Parisot, president of the Union Syndicale des Magistrates (USM), one of the unions behind the complaints filed with the Anticor association to denounce conflict of interest situations in two files.

"Sufficient charges", according to François Molins

She also refused to hear Henri-Claude Le Gall, retired honorary magistrate and former president of the CJR between 2000 and 2012. This same investigative committee had asked for her opinion on the procedure to follow concerning nullity requests filed by the minister.

Also seized of a request for cancellation of the procedure, the commission judged it admissible but did not grant it.

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"These are expected decisions which are in line with the 'jurisprudence' adopted by the investigating committee in this case", reacted to AFP Mes Christophe Ingrain and Rémi Lorrain, lawyers for the minister.

"We will challenge them before the Court of Cassation," they added.

The magistrates of the CJR completed their investigations in mid-April in this case.

On May 9, the public prosecutor at the Court of Cassation François Molins, who represents the public ministry before the CJR, requested a trial for the minister, judging that there were "sufficient charges" against him for this.

Suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts

The minister, who entered the government in the summer of 2020 and then was reappointed to the Chancellery after the re-election in May of Emmanuel Macron, is suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble from when he was a lawyer in two cases.

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

In the second, he is accused of having initiated administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Edouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients.

Eric Dupond-Moretti disputes the facts, claiming to have only "follow the recommendations of his administration".

Summoned in March and April to be re-examined by the magistrates of the CJR, he had refused to answer their questions.