Eric Dupond-Moretti can count on Jean Castex. If he is not his lawyer, the former Prime Minister defended the current Minister of Justice before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) this Friday. At the trial of the man he calls the “excellent Keeper of the Seals”, the former head of government worked hard to convince the judges of the absence of any conflict of interest.
The affair of the “fadettes”, the detailed telephone bills of lawyers that magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) had examined in a file of Nicolas Sarkozy, provoking the fury of Eric Dupond-Moretti still tenor of the bar, Jean Castex had not heard of it at the time. “At this moment”, just before his appointment to Matignon in the summer of 2020, he is dealing with “a subject perhaps not as important”: post-Covid-19 deconfinement, quips the witness.
The current boss of the RATP is cited in the unprecedented trial for “illegal taking of interest” from Eric Dupond-Moretti – the Minister of Justice is suspected of having used his functions to settle scores with these PNF magistrates – because he had inherited, too late according to the prosecution, problematic files from his Minister of Justice.
“I am not the instrument of some plot”
Before that, Eric Dupond-Moretti had already launched an administrative investigation – this is what he is accused of – against the magistrates, but it is the Prime Minister who gets “the baby”, as he says. And must decide whether or not to refer the matter to the Superior Council of the Magistracy, responsible for the discipline of magistrates. The subject is “delicate”, says Jean Castex, who speaks loudly and with grand gestures. “It’s still the PNF! »
So, he decides to read the reports himself, “for hours on end on the weekend”. And comes to a conclusion, in his “soul and conscience”: “there are significant dysfunctions”. “It’s all me who does it,” he solemnly swears. “I am not sensitive to any pressure, I am not the instrument of some plot, and I have a lot of respect for the PNF.” And if at the time he had an “excellent Keeper of the Seals”, smiles Jean Castex, he is not his “lawyer”, but “the defender of the public service”.
“Still,” says the former Prime Minister. “What would be the illegal taking of interest” accused of the Minister of Justice? To have contacted the General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ), which does not itself have the power to “sanction” magistrates? “That’s the facts!” », Exclaims the one who ironically about the “very serious act”. Given the “dysfunctions”, assures Jean Castex, anyone would have done the same thing. “The problem”, repeats once again Rémy Heitz – attorney general at the Court of Cassation, who brings the accusation to trial – is not the “investigation”, but the one who triggers it.
The Minister of Justice takes his own defense
Eric Dupond-Moretti’s lawyers complain about this accusation which gives too much of its “opinion”, finding that the defense does not have “a lot of say in this trial”. “You have the floor,” replies the president, Dominique Pauthe. Me Jacqueline Laffont, a little embarrassed, “leaves the floor to Eric Dupond-Moretti”. The latter, who leaves decidedly little room for his lawyers at the hearing, takes the stand to question his former head of government.
“I would like to ask the Prime Minister if, in the many, many exchanges that we had during the years when we were close professionally and humanly, I expressed to him only once the resentment that I would have had at the against this or that magistrate”. Jean Castex: “the answer is obviously no”.
“I have had the feeling for a long time of being in a trap,” continues Eric Dupond-Moretti at the helm, who has always considered his legal troubles as the result of a “war” led by magistrates who have never accepted his appointment at Place Vendôme. He mentions what could have been done differently but above all brushes aside the “all we have to do is, we have to”, emphasizes that he was a “novice”, and maintains that it was necessary to order these “very useful” investigations.
“Illegal taking of interest is doing, but it is also not doing,” continues the minister, certain that he would also have been accused of “doing nothing”, of being “scared”. Eric Dupond-Moretti, for once, looks a little disappointed: “whether I do it or not, I’m in the trap”.