2023-09-01 16:02:00
Like every year, the Mercuriales of the Mons Court of Appeal launch the new judicial year. It was 3:19 p.m. on Friday when Ingrid Godart, Attorney General, asked the Court of Appeal to resume its work. Then she asked the new lawyers to take an oath before Philippe Morandini, first president of the court of appeal.
New lawyers
This year, eight women and six men, who graduated last June, took the lawyer’s oath. Six lawyers are registered with the Tournai bar, four with the Mons bar and four with the Charleroi bar.
Me Valérie Dehon, chairman of the Mons bar, welcomed these young lawyers with a few words, on behalf of the three Hainaut bars. “Wear your robe, a symbol of your probity and independence, with pride and humility,” she said.
The lawyer recalls that lawyers are at a crossroads, justice being called upon to computerize a little more. “You will have moments of joy, of exaltation, but also of doubts and moments of loneliness. However, you will never be alone”.
The court and the public prosecutor’s office also paid tribute to the judicial actors who have disappeared in recent months.
Numbers
Ingrid Godart presented statistics, figures for the past year.
At the correctional level, the number of new cases handled on appeal is slightly up compared to 2021, as is the number of cases closed.
The Indictment Division slightly increased its number of closed cases, while the number of new cases stabilized.
In 2022, there were twelve sessions before the Assize Court to try around twenty defendants.
At the level of the company court, the effects of the Covid crisis are felt since the number of bankruptcies is up by more than 46%. On the other hand, judicial dissolutions are on the decline.
Concerning the Hainaut court of first instance, the stock of cases to be processed is decreasing, even if there are more and more family disputes before the family court.
Route et justice
The Attorney General read her back-to-school speech entitled “Road traffic and justice… or the hare and the tortoise”. She mentioned the use of increasingly computerized means used by the police in the field, the establishment of more than four thousand radars on the national territory…
Justice must follow all these technological advances, whereas today data transfers are always raw, and not computerized, whereas the law authorizes it via in particular the use of the advanced electronic stamp, the ebox, etc. . However, these electronic means have not yet been used. “The Phoenix law currently appears outdated,” said the magistrate.
These reforms presented limits and generated dysfunctions in payment orders, and this quickly became unmanageable for the country’s public prosecutor’s offices. This is why a national road safety package has been created, with the aim of reducing the workload of the police departments within the judicial districts and to better prosecute traffic offenders at national and European level, in collaboration with the member countries of the Union.
Last year, immediate collections brought a recipe of 471 million euros, part of which falls into the federal coffers. This money was able to finance the computerization of payment orders and immediate collections. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of human resources to process all this data, within the houses of justice. For the Attorney General, this is a challenge. She mentions two avenues: more resources for the FPS Justice and the creation of regional funds for road safety. Thus, the entire criminal chain can be covered.
The Keeper of the Buckets
The first president of the court of appeal, Philippe Morandini, responded by referring to the inventory of justice. “The French have a Keeper of the Seals, I am the Keeper of the Buckets of the Mons Court of Appeal”, ironically the magistrate, showing to the judicial actors of the hexagon, the buckets placed in the room of the steps lost in the court of justice. For years, it has been raining in the Courtyards (a building that is not twenty years old) and part of the roof is still in danger of collapsing.
He too is calling for means to modernize the places of justice and hire staff. The presidents of the courts of Mons, Tournai and Charleroi have been pushing the same cries for years. Philippe Morandini believes that the financial means exist, given the success encountered by the issue of state bonds!
Justice needs money, and it is urgent!
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