The multiple accusations against Russia since the beginning of the war in Ukraine and the limited powers of the International Criminal Court concerning two non-member states had revived the debate. After the Senate, the National Assembly on Thursday reinforced the “universal jurisdiction” of French justice to try crimes against humanity and war crimes committed outside its soil on foreign nationals, by removing a “lock”.
During the examination at first reading of the justice bill, the deputies voted to abolish one of the conditions limiting this “universal jurisdiction”: “double incrimination”. This restriction present in the Code of Criminal Procedure (article 689-11) stipulates that it is necessary to prosecute and try in France an alleged perpetrator of crimes against humanity or war crimes that these facts are also “punished by the law of the State where they were committed”. The Assembly removed this condition, after a relaxation already introduced in the Senate by the socialist Jean-Pierre Sueur, specialist in these questions.
Eric Dupond-Moretti “proud”
Macronist MP Guillaume Gouffier Valente (Renaissance) called for this “extension of the extraterritorial jurisdiction of our courts”, regularly requested by NGOs such as Amnesty. “The aggression of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 completely relaunched the debate”, underlined this elected representative from Val-de-Marne, also author of a bill on the question. The Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti was “very favorable” to the measure and “proud” that it “arrives in the text”. This “allows the legislator to stabilize case law which has fluctuated”, he noted.
The parliamentarians follow in the wake of a recent decision by the Court of Cassation on May 12, which underlined that “for there to be double incrimination, it is not necessary that the facts relating in France to offenses of crimes against humanity or war crimes are qualified in the same way by the laws of the foreign country”. The Assembly also relaxed another “lock” limiting prosecution: the fact that the foreign national must “habitually reside” in France to be tried there.