2023-06-23 13:43:14
Justice on Friday canceled the decree renewing the judicial approval which allowed Anticor to intervene in court in cases of the fight once morest corruption, which makes the leaders of this association fear “very negative impacts” for several political cases. – ongoing financials.
“The approval was canceled” by the administrative court of Paris, “with retroactive effect from April 2, 2021”, date of the contested decree, told AFP Elise Van Beneden, president of Anticor since 2020. Frédéric Thiriez, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, two dissidents of the association, confirmed this information, but is waiting to receive the decision to comment on it.
Complaints made more difficult
Without approval, it will be very difficult for the association to initiate new proceedings, since it can no longer file complaints with civil action, except to demonstrate “personal and direct damage”. This also means that it is no longer a civil party in the cases in which it was incorporated following April 2021.
Created in 2002, Anticor was involved until then in 159 ongoing proceedings, according to its president, including the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar, the investigation for illegal taking of interests targeting the secretary general of the Elysée Alexis Kohler , or that once morest the Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti before the Court of Justice of the Republic … It is because of this last file that the renewal had been signed by the former Prime Minister Jean Castex and not by the Minister of Justice, following months of uncertainty.
More recently, proceedings were triggered by a complaint from Anticor in the case of the sale of the energy branch of Alstom to General Electric or in the Russian contracts of Alexandre Benalla.
Protest by several deputies
According to two specialists in criminal procedure interviewed by AFP, very few cases would be threatened with outright cancellation, but certain points of the procedure might be disputed and the progress of the judicial information would rest entirely on the investigating judge. . But “there are instructions where we are very active, in connection with anonymous whistleblowers, who give us documents that we send to the investigating judge. We can also slip him some leads” to suggest certain witness hearings, underlined Elise Van Beneden.
Anticor intends to challenge the decision before the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal and quickly file “a request for new approval”, said the lawyer. “The legitimacy of Anticor to benefit from an approval is beyond doubt. The executive must ensure (its) renewal as soon as possible” with “a legally unassailable decree”, estimated in a press release Transparency International, one of the two other associations holding anti-corruption approval, with Sherpa.
Anticor will hold a press conference in Paris at 4:00 p.m., in the presence of “deputies who support the association”, the boss of deputies LR Olivier Marleix and the elected LFI Raquel Garrido, indicated Elise Van Beneden. Other elected officials expressed their support on Twitter. “Without Anticor, how many corruption scandals would not have seen the light of day?” asked LFI MEP Manon Aubry, denouncing a “scandalous and incomprehensible decision”. The leader of the LFI deputies Mathilde Panot sees it as “a new attack on freedom of association”, while the MEP Gilbert Collard (Reconquest) estimated that “this (would) please all the corrupt”.
“Error of law”
Two dissidents of Anticor had taken legal action in June 2021, considering the irregular renewal procedure and judging that the association did not meet the required conditions: independent and disinterested activities, information of the members on the management… At the hearing , on June 12, the public rapporteur considered that the decree was “clearly tainted” by an “error of law”. The law “does not provide for the possibility for the administration to override non-compliance” with the conditions necessary for approval “on the pretext that the association would make a commitment to comply with them for the future”, had she argued.
The public rapporteur had also minimized the scope of a cancellation of the approval, affirming that “the general interest (…) would not be affected”, since “once the proceedings have been initiated, the public prosecutor has not not the possibility of giving it up”. “The approval was created precisely because there is a problem with the public prosecutor. The political question behind it is that anti-corruption associations are very disturbing”, estimated Me Elise Van Beneden, who had already seen political motives in the laborious renewal of 2021.
(With AFP)
1687538642
#NGO #Anticor #deprived #judicial #approval #administrative #court
