The administrative court of Marseille has decided to no longer entrust litigation files concerning foreigners, “until further notice”, to one of its magistrates removed on Tuesday from his duties at the National Court of Asylum, announced Thursday its president.
The CNDA, which rules on appeals on asylum applications rejected at first instance by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, “granted three requests for challenges from the magistrate (…) concerning serious doubts about his impartiality », Thierry Trottier reminded AFP.
A decision taken “as a precautionary measure”
“The administrative court will draw conclusions” from this decision and “Mr. (Jean-Marie) Argoud, who was required to handle part of the foreigners’ dispute, will no longer do so,” he continued. The decision was taken “as a precaution,” said the president of the administrative court.
The CNDA studied on Tuesday, and accepted, three requests for recusal targeting Jean-Marie Argoud, against whom several lawyers specializing in the defense of asylum seekers criticized anti-refugee, Islamophobic and anti-LGBT community publications on his Facebook account, then public .
The judges of the instance, meeting in collegial formation, considered that the “public positions taken by Mr. Jean-Marie Argoud on social networks (were) likely to create doubt about his impartiality as an asylum judge” , according to the CNDA.