The Keeper of the Seals has the “ambition of halving” the timeframes for proceedings, both for civil justice and for criminal justice.
By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted update
Hiring of magistrates, simplification of the code of criminal procedure… Two bills translating the promises made in January by the Keeper of the Seals in his “action plan for justice” arrive Wednesday, May 3 in the Council of Ministers.
“We heard what our compatriots, magistrates and justice personnel were saying”, assured Éric Dupond-Moretti in an interview with AFP. In July 2022, after eight months of consultation and after an unprecedented platform signed by thousands of magistrates shouting their “suffering”the report of the Estates General had made the alarmist observation of justice in a “state of disrepair”perceived as “too slowly” speak French. “The object, for me, is more protective justice, faster, more efficient justice”summarized the Keeper of the Seals, reaffirming his “ambition to halve” procedural delays, both for civil and criminal justice.
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We will in five years hire more magistrates than in the last twenty years. »
Eric Dupond-Moretti
The two texts – one “orientation and programming bill” of justice and a “draft organic law relating to the opening, modernization and accountability of the judiciary” – will be debated in Parliament in June. The first endorses a “historic increase” of the justice budget: +21% over the five-year period. This will make it possible in particular to finance the creation of 10,000 positions, including 1,500 magistrates. “In five years we will hire more magistrates than in the last twenty years”says Éric Dupond-Moretti.
To achieve this objective, the “organic bill” provides for “wider access routes” to the profession of magistrate, in particular for other legal professionals (lawyers, clerks, etc.). Eventually, a quota will guarantee that 50% of new magistrates will come from the “classic” law students, but it will not be applied in the first years in order to guarantee the promised hiring. Other confirmed reinforcements: 1,500 additional clerks by 2027 and a few hundred“court officers”a new function that will replace the current ones “assistant lawyers” And “specialist assistants” whose status was considered too precarious. It will bring “a real breath of fresh air in the courts”wants to believe the minister.
The bill will also authorize the government to order a “rewrite” of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to simplify “a tool that has become unreadable”. This project, entrusted in January to a committee of experts, will however not be completed until 2024. A follow-up of the work of this committee by a group of parliamentarians will be “shortly” put in place. In parallel with this bill, several decrees will be published “before summer”, in particular to develop amicable settlements in civil justice. To go “faster” and hand over the litigant “at the heart of the justice that concerns him”justifies the Keeper of the Seals, explaining that he wants “recenter” the role of the judge “on the heart of his job: to say the law”.
73,080 detainees for 60,899 places
The Minister takes up in these texts a large part of the recommendations of the Estates General, with one major exception, the question of prison overcrowding, which reached a new historic record on April 1 with 73,080 prisoners for 60,899 operational places, i.e. a density of 120%. Faced with this chronic evil, the Estates General had pleaded for a mechanism setting a threshold of “major overcrowding” beyond which could be “envisaged” measures of “regulation” of the prison population.
“It’s not fair and it doesn’t make sense”sweeps away the Keeper of the Seals, “totally against”and who prefers to recall the construction plan for 15,000 prison places expected by 2027, as well as the renovation of prisons, whose budget “Doubled”. It also highlights other mechanisms recently put in place, such as the “compulsory release”, which should allow the early release of prisoners sentenced to less than two years’ imprisonment and who have less than three months left to serve. Finally, he recalls that he regularly encourages the courts to pronounce community service sentences (TIG), “whenever possible”.
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