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Emmanuel Macron’s justice minister appeared before a special tribunal on Monday over alleged conflicts of interest and abuse of office, the first time a sitting member of the French government has had to appear before the body.
Éric Dupond-Moretti, a former celebrity lawyer who was chosen by the French president as an unconventional choice for minister in 2020, denounced the trial as “a shame.” He will remain in office during the procedure, which is expected to last 10 days.
The allegations center on whether Dupond-Moretti abused his position to settle old scores with magistrates and prosecutors with whom he clashed over his decades as a lawyer. His case is being heard by a special tribunal that focuses on ministerial misconduct and consists of three judges and twelve MPs.
The case has spotlighted Macron’s habit of retaining ministers and advisers who end up in legal trouble, despite promising to run a clean, transparent government during the 2017 presidential election.
“I have every confidence in Eric Dupond-Moretti, he is doing an excellent job and like everyone else he has the right to be presumed innocent,” Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said before the hearings started.
The case – which was initially sparked in part by complaints filed by a left-wing union representing judges who opposed Dupond-Moretti’s appointment – will also test the special tribunal, the Cour de Justice de la République (CJR). set. Critics say the body is overly politicized and ineffective because MPs sit next to judges.
“The situation is very strange. You have a sitting minister who is being judged for conflicts of interest by people with whom he has a conflict of interest,” said Paul Cassia, vice-chairman of Anticor, an anti-corruption organization that filed the first complaint against the minister.
“What we reproach Éric Dupond-Moretti is that he used a public position to promote private interests,” Cassia added ahead of the trial in which he will appear as a witness.
Dupond-Moretti, a combative orator known for his defense of Société Générale rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, has denied wrongdoing. If found guilty, he faces five years in prison and a €500,000 fine.
“For me and for my loved ones, this trial is a shame,” Dupond-Moretti told the court, according to the AFP news agency. He said it was also “a relief” to be able to defend himself. He will take the stand and answer questions on Tuesday.
One of the allegations against him centers on whether, once in office, he sufficiently recused himself from a case against another magistrate with whom he had previously fallen out.
The other revolves around the fact that days before he became attorney general, he filed a lawsuit alleging that the Financial Crimes District Attorney’s Office violated his privacy by accessing his phone records and those of other attorneys when it investigated alleged corruption by former President Nicolas. Sarkozy.
Dupond-Moretti withdrew his complaint when he was appointed to the government. But shortly afterwards he opened a disciplinary investigation against three judges of the public prosecutor’s office for financial crimes.
Macron has opted to retain Dupond-Moretti, including through a mini-reshuffle in July. The Minister’s term in office was marked by a historic increase in the Ministry of Justice’s budget to finance additional court staff and judges in an effort to reduce the delays caused by legal proceedings, and by measures to reduce prison overcrowding. light up.
Several other high-profile members of Macron’s inner circle are facing legal challenges, including Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt, who will be tried in a different court later this month on corruption charges over allegations related to his time as mayor. Alexis Kohler, the president’s top adviser at the Elysée Palace, is being formally investigated by the financial crimes prosecutor’s office for allegedly violating conflict of interest laws to benefit a Swiss-Italian shipping company with which he has family ties.
Both men deny any wrongdoing.
Macron had promised in 2017 that any minister identified as a formal suspect in a legal investigation would have to resign.
Transparency International France, the anti-corruption charity, called on the justice minister to resign last October when he was ordered to stand trial, and opposition politicians have also urged him to resign.
The CJR has previously handled cases against former ministers, including ex-finance minister and current ECB chief Christine Lagarde, who was convicted in 2016 of negligence in public office over a fraudulent state payment to the late entrepreneur Bernard Tapie. More recently, she has investigated Macron’s former health minister Agnès Buzyn over her handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the tribunal handed down few convictions and imposed mostly light sentences. Critics say this is because elected officials are involved in the decisions. Several presidents, including François Hollande and Macron himself, have considered abolishing the law, and a recent conference of experts focused on reforming judicial institutions called for its scrapping.
The trial runs until November 16 and will be followed by a verdict.