Eric Dupond-Moretti is suspended on Monday by the decision of the Court of Justice of the Republic.

The CJR must indeed rule on a possible referral to trial of the Keeper of the Seals, suspected of conflicts of interest.

The former tenor of the bar, appointed head of the Chancellery in the summer of 2020 and reappointed to this post after the re-election in May of Emmanuel Macron, is summoned at 9 a.m. with his lawyers before the commission of instruction of the CJR.

The latter, who indicted him for illegal taking of interest in July 2021, will tell him if she has decided to have him appear before his court formation, the only one empowered to judge members of the government for crimes or misdemeanors committed. in the exercise of their mandate.

"No illusions about the meaning of the decision"

For the minister himself, whose relations with the judiciary are notoriously difficult, the decision is no mystery: he said on Tuesday that he had "virtual assurance" of being fired.

His lawyers also said on Friday that they had "no illusions about the meaning of the decision".

In this event, it would be a first for a Minister of Justice still in office.

“I have always said that I held my legitimacy from the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister and from them alone,” he however declared on Tuesday.

His dismissal would not fail to raise once again the question of the maintenance of the government of the former criminal lawyer.

Eric Dupond-Moretti is accused of having taken advantage of his position, once at the head of the Ministry of Justice, to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble when he was a lawyer, which he dispute.

Complaints from magistrates' unions and the anticorruption association Anticor, denouncing two situations of conflict of interest since his arrival at the Chancellery, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation in January 2021.

The "Paul Bismuth" affair

The first case concerns the administrative investigation he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor's Office.

They had his detailed telephone bills peeled when Eric Dupond-Moretti was still a star at the bar in order to flush out a possible mole who would have informed Nicolas Sarkozy that he was being tapped in the so-called "Paul Bismuth" corruption case.

In the second case, the Keeper of the Seals 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.

The CSM decided on September 15 not to sanction Edouard Levrault, considering that “no disciplinary breach could be blamed on him”.

Throughout the investigation, Eric Dupond-Moretti, on the other hand, repeated that he had only "followed the recommendations of his administration".

An argument that did not convince the public prosecutor: in May he requested a trial against the minister.

Policy

Illegal taking of interests: Eric Dupond-Moretti's lawyers want to have his indictment canceled

Justice

Illegal taking of interests: One of Eric Dupond-Moretti's laptops seized during the search at the Ministry of Justice

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  • Eric Dupond Moretti

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  • Corruption