The scale of the mobilization surprised the first interested parties themselves. “Let’s say that we are not a profession that claims a lot, we have rather taken the habit of bowing down …” breathes a seasoned magistrate. Fifteen days after publication in The world, from a forum highlighting the working conditions of magistrates and the increasingly palpable discomfort of this usually silent body, the protest is growing. More than 5,200 magistrates – out of the 9,000 in the profession – and 1,200 clerks have already signed this text which denounces, after the suicide of a young judge, a justice “which mistreats the litigants but also those who work for its functioning”. In recent days, several courts have, in parallel, adopted motions on similar themes and a day of mobilization is already scheduled for December 15, uniting magistrates, clerks and lawyers.
“We all recognized each other in this forum. It is our daily life which is described therein, insists Nicolas *, judge of the children in a jurisdiction of Ile-de-France. He, for example, had to perform for four months, in addition to his duties, those of his clerk, arrested and not replaced. Even today, this young magistrate holds “80%” of his educational assistance hearings without a clerk, which does not, however, comply with the requirements of the Code of Civil Procedure. “Already I can only devote 45 minutes per family, but when I take notes, I am less focused on what they say.” Among court clerks, the situation is also alarming. “When I was working in Paris, if I finished the hearing at 10:30 pm, I told myself that it was a short day,” recalls Isabelle Fernandez, now deputy secretary general of Unsa judicial services. And even when those ended at 1 or 2 a.m., she was in court before 9 a.m. to notify the decisions. “It wasn’t just me,” she insists, “we all did that. “
A third of the magistrates in “suffering”
The finding is not new. For several years now, unions have been denouncing the latent burn-out of part of the profession. In 2015, the Union Syndicale des Magistrates published a “white paper” on suffering at work. Four years later, it is the turn of the Syndicat de la magistrature to launch an investigation on the subject. Among the 750 professionals questioned, 80% believe that their workload has an impact on the quality of their decision, 57% evoke “repercussions” on their health, and a third say they are in pain. According to the trade unions, sick leaves, particularly of long duration, have increased in recent years. An assertion difficult to confirm, since there is, according to the Ministry of Justice, no centralization of these figures.
Still, the platform seems to have released the word of a body held to the duty of reserve. How do you make decisions that have a major impact on the lives of hundreds of thousands of people when the stock of business is constantly growing and understaffing is recurring? How can you be satisfied with a hearing that is postponed for several months or that ends in the middle of the night? From anecdotes to anecdotes, magistrates and clerks unveil the behind the scenes of a justice which relies on the good will of those who work there. “I don’t go to the doctor if I’m sick, otherwise he would stop me,” smiles Nicolas. The same one who confides to having recently become unwell during a hearing and to have resumed after a ten-minute suspension so as not to return the cases or to put his workload on already overworked colleagues.
“There is a loss of meaning”
“I went to request with a sciatica rifle, I cried in the toilets at each suspension of hearing”, adds one of her sisters of a prosecutor’s office in the South-West, explaining to have taken this decision not to refer a rape case of which the facts went back several years already. Both admit it: on that day, they were probably not able to do their work in optimal conditions, but would the litigants have understood to wait for months more? “There is a loss of meaning to exercise in these conditions,” admits the latter.
At the Ministry of Justice, it is recalled that since the start of the five-year term, 650 magistrates and 850 additional clerks have been assigned, that 2,000 contract workers have been hired in one year. Above all, we insist on the “historic” increase in the justice budget, under the mandate of Eric Dupond-Moretti: twice 8%, for 2021 and 2022. “It’s better than nothing but we start from so low, how can we be satisfied with it ?, breaths a parquetier. Three or four have been doing the work of five people for so long. “According to the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (Cepej), France devoted, in 2020, 69.5 euros per capita and 0.2% of its GDP to its judicial system when the European average is 72 euros per capita and 0.33% of GDP.
“I was not replaced during my maternity leave”
Of course, not all magistrates say they are in pain, but many of them recount this feeling of constantly having to arbitrate between quality and quantity. “We would all like to do haute couture but we have to be content with ready-to-wear,” sums up a parquetier. Jean, magistrate of the seat for ten years in the west of France, remembers that in his beginnings, he worked “three weekends out of four”. It took him two years to no longer bring back files on Friday evening and to agree to concentrate his forces on the most complicated. The most common decisions are made in minutes. A condition sine qua non so as not to end up in burnout, according to him. The latter says, however, that his first instinct, after an accident that immobilized him for several weeks, was to send his partner to retrieve a pile of files so that he could continue to write judgments. “It was I who proposed it, but I knew that they were going to ask me,” he says.
There are, however, “placed judges”, magistrates whose function is to replace their colleagues in the event of their absence or to strengthen a service as needed. But they remain in insufficient number and the heads of jurisdiction are obliged to arbitrate between the most urgent needs. “I was not replaced during my maternity leave, remembers Anne-Laure Maduraud, who was then a children’s judge. My colleagues took my emergencies but I knew that on my return I was going to have to work extra hard. Tired of always having the feeling of being pushed to cut corners on quality, she decided in the spring to resign after fifteen years in the business. “The workload, we can absorb it if we have a sense of meaning, that cases are generally well handled, that justice respects the rights of people, without that, it is no longer acceptable”, explains. -she. What surprised her the most was the reaction of her colleagues. She who feared a certain hostility received, on the contrary, messages of encouragement: “I understand you”, “it’s courageous”, “I have already thought about it but I did not dare to take the plunge” …
Rare resignations
His case remains rare. According to the Ministry of Justice, 24 magistrates have resigned since 2016, including seven during this year. “It remains very limited, there are more than 9,000 magistrates”, we insist. However, some say they are considering this option. “I have already thought about it several times, but I do not know how I could promote my skills elsewhere,” says a parquet worker with ten years of experience. Nicolas, who entered the judiciary two years ago, is also not sure whether he will do this job all his life. “I find the position fascinating but the working conditions are such that I find it difficult to see how it is possible to exercise in these conditions for forty years …” Like many of his colleagues, he nevertheless claims to have chosen this voice by vocation.