The draft orientation and programming law of the Ministry of Justice 2023-2027 is accompanied by a draft organic law on "the opening, modernization and accountability of the judiciary".

The Senate will vote on these two rather technical texts in solemn votes on Tuesday, June 13.

"Justice is first and foremost means, given the finding of dilapidation that was drawn up by the committee of the States General," said the minister during his hearing in the Senate.

Article 1 of the bill aims to increase the budget of the Ministry of Justice from 9.6 billion euros in 2023 to nearly 11 billion within four years. It also approved the hiring of 10,000 people, including 1,500 magistrates.

The budgetary effort and additional recruitments were welcomed by the magistrates, who remain however doubtful about the promise of a rapid improvement in the processing times of files.

If the texts "go in the direction of improving the functioning of the judicial institution", according to the rapporteurs Agnès Canayer (LR) and Dominique Vérien (centrist), the senators also remain on their hunger.

Agnès Canayer deplored to AFP "a resumption not always faithful and not complete" of the conclusions of the States General of Justice.

In committee, the senators adopted an amendment by the rapporteurs increasing from 1,500 to 1,800 the number of new clerks and providing for the creation of 600 posts of prison probation and integration advisers (CPIP).

The Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti at the National Assembly, on May 30, 2023 in Paris © Alain JOCARD / AFP / Archives

Access routes to the judiciary will be reformed and opened up to new profiles. The reform also provides for the creation of a new function, that of "judicial attachés", who will replace the current "assistant lawyers".

The Minister of Justice stressed that the text endorses "important revaluations and in particular an increase of 1,000 euros monthly for magistrates, which will be effective from the autumn".

Domestic violence

The senators "took note" in committee of the orientations mentioned in the report annexed to the bill, and accepted that it be supplemented by an amendment of the government to institutionalize in the courts specialized poles in the fight against intra-family violence.

This is a major recommendation of the parliamentary report on domestic violence submitted to the minister on May 22 by Ms. Vérien and MP Emilie Chandler (Renaissance).

The Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti, Isabelle Rome (2nd l), Minister Delegate for Equality between Women and Men, and the authors of the report to improve the judicial arsenal against domestic violence, MP Emilie Chandler (l) and Senator Dominique Vérien (r), May 22, 2023 in Paris © ALAIN JOCARD /

Always vigilant when it comes to authorizing the government to legislate by ordinance, the senators have set their conditions for the request for authorization to "clarify" by this means the drafting of the code of criminal procedure.

They set aside a one-year delay between the publication of the ordinance and its entry into force, in order to give Parliament room for manoeuvre. "The desire for a real simplification of the procedural code does not appear anywhere," regretted Ms. Canayer.

The Senate's Law Commission welcomed "favourably" certain measures to modernize the judicial institution, "although often of technical scope".

This is particularly the case with the experimentation of economic activity courts, with extended powers compared to commercial courts. Or strengthening the accountability of magistrates.

On the left, the socialist Laurence Harribey points to "a incomplete text", deploring the absence of the issue of prison overcrowding, while the number of prisoners reached a new historical record on May 1, with 73,162 people incarcerated.

The States General had suggested setting for each establishment a threshold of "major overcrowding", beyond which measures to regulate the prison population could be envisaged.

The minister prefers to recall the "course" set by the government to build 15,000 additional prison places by 2027.

The association La Quadrature du Net is concerned about a provision allowing judicial investigators to remotely activate a person's electronic devices without his knowledge. However, this possibility is limited to crimes and misdemeanours punishable by more than 5 years' imprisonment.

© 2023 AFP