A working group made up of magistrates, police officers, gendarmes and specialized lawyers must submit at the end of the month proposals to the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti for a better resolution of the "cold cases".

Centralization of files, via a pole of specialized judges, is preferred.  

An absence of response for families, a failure for justice.

To resolve more effectively the "cold cases" - these old, complex and forgotten criminal cases - a working group made up of magistrates, police officers, gendarmes but also specialized lawyers has peeled the gaps in the French system on this subject.

The proposals will be on the table of the Keeper of the Seals, Eric Dupond-Moretti, by the end of the month.

A problem far from being anecdotal: the number of cases concerned would rise, according to a specialized lawyer, between 200 and 300.

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A lack of communication that leads to failure

These files may involve serial killers, scattered all over France.

Thus, the working group pleads for a centralization of files: a pole of specialized judges dedicated to "cold cases", like what is currently done in terms of terrorism or financial delinquency.

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"Serial killers travel throughout France, sometimes even coming from abroad. Investigating a case in Chalon-en-Champagne, a second in Reims, is not giving oneself any chance of finding the truth. , a third in Lyon and a fourth in Toulouse, "says lawyer Didier Seban.

"Each judge has his case, without the magistrates speaking to each other, without the investigators exchanging. We doom ourselves to failure. This is why today, we do not stop the killers in series in this country. "

The problem of seals

The Chancellery would welcome the creation of this new center, but will have to deal with other issues such as seals, for example.

Kept in boxes somehow in the basements of courts, they can be destroyed six months after a judge decides to close a case, according to the law.

It is therefore impossible to compare the evidence with the progress of scientific expertise, made years later.