The General Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of Cassation announces the end of the investigation into the suspicions of illegal taking of interests targeting the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupont-Moretti.
The magistrates of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) closed their investigation on Friday into the suspicions of illegal taking of interests targeting the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, indicted since July 2021, announces the general prosecutor’s office of the Court of Cassation.
The Minister of Justice is suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble when he was a lawyer in two cases.
A lawsuit still possible
The public prosecutor’s office now has three months to submit its submissions, while defense lawyers have an additional month to make observations. The magistrates of the CJR’s investigation committee will then decide to dismiss the case or to refer Eric Dupond-Moretti to trial before the CJR’s judgment formation.
“This notice of end of information is the normal continuation of the procedure, following the last exchanges between the minister and the investigating committee. The end of this phase finally allows the examination by the Court of Cassation of all the defenses raised since the beginning of the procedure”, reacted to AFP the lawyers of the Minister of Justice.
The CJR is the only jurisdiction empowered to prosecute and try ministers for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions. Eric Dupond-Moretti, appointed minister in the summer of 2020, has been indicted for illegal taking of interest since July 2021, a first for a Keeper of the Seals.
Complaints from magistrates’ unions and the anticorruption association Anticor, denouncing two situations of conflict of interest since his arrival at the Chancellery, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation. Summoned in March and April by the magistrates of the CJR on each of the two files, he refused to answer their questions.
Two files concerned
The first file concerns the administrative investigation he ordered in September 2020 once morest three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) who had had his detailed telephone bills peeled (“fadettes”) when he was still a star of the bar.
In the other, he is accused of having instituted administrative proceedings once morest a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Edouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients and whose methods he had criticized. cowboy”.
Eric Dupond-Moretti has always insisted that he had only “follow the recommendations” of his administration.
