Justice
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The Minister of Justice has been on trial for “illegal taking of interests” for ten days before the Court of Justice of the Republic. The requisitions of the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation Rémy Heitz fell this Wednesday, November 15, i.e. a one-year suspended sentence against the Minister of Justice.
We had rarely seen him so calm. Tapping on his phone, looking falsely disinterested, or blackening his notepad. Just the day before, Eric Dupond-Moretti looked like a pressure cooker ready to overflow… On the seventh day of his trial for “illegal taking of interests” before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), the Minister of Justice listened for four hours to the subtle indictment led in two voices by the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Rémy Heitz, and the Advocate General Philippe Lagauche.
In front of a packed room imbued with solemnity, the duo asked to declare the Minister of Justice guilty of this “obstruction offense, intended to avoid confusion between public affairs and private affairs” and required “a fair and meaningful sentence”, a one-year suspended prison sentence against the minister, suspected of having used his prerogatives to take revenge on four magistrates – a former investigating judge in Monaco and three members of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) – against whom he had disputes from his days as a lawyer. Concerning the penalty of ineligibility, the pronouncement of which is obligatory in the event of conviction, the prosecution indicated to the judges that they could exempt themselves from it “by specially reasoned decision”.
“Cowboy” and “crazy”
“Never, when taking my oath as a magistrate, more than thirty-five years ago, would I have imagined one day having to hold the seat of the public prosecutor in a trial involving the min