For years, the families of victims and their lawyers have been asking for its creation. On March 1, in Nanterre, a fully dedicated national judicial center will be inaugurated “to serial and unsolved crimes”. He must allow “it is up to these files to remain alive judicially”, explained this Wednesday the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, in a daily interview 20 minutes. Created within the framework of the law strengthening confidence in the judicial institution promulgated on December 22, it will be the subject of an implementing decree “posted this week”.
“We are not going to sulk our satisfaction. It is the culmination of more than twenty years of combat, carried out in particular with Ms Corinne Herrmann“, rejoices with Release Didier Seban, specialized lawyer who co-represents in particular with his colleague the families of the victims of Michel Fourniret, sentenced for eight crimes. Before alerting: “The question of means arises immediately, especially since we lack criminal investigators. It happens that files are blocked for lack of personnel.
In France, justice is to date seized of 173 unsolved crimes while 68 procedures of serial crimes are in progress, according to the Keeper of the Seals. They would rather “several thousands” for Didier Seban, if we take “the abandoned, classified files” of recent years. These cases could thus be entrusted to the three investigating judges who will make up this unique unit, located at the Versailles Court of Appeal.
“Focus on efforts”
Concretely, these will be “the unsolved cases after eighteen months of fruitless investigations” which will be likely to be transmitted to the pole. “But that does not mean that all the cases which have lasted eighteen months without us being able to find a trace of the author will be the subject of a divestiture in favor of this pole”, nuance the Keeper of the Seals.
This pole aims to solve several pitfalls. “Often, there is a rotation of the investigating magistrates every two years: they do not have time to read the file, the investigations are fragmented and not joined”, regretted last January in an interview with Release, the same Didier Séban. “We see in the very long files, the complex files, three or four magistrates who follow one another”, recognizes Eric Dupond-Moretti, who wants this “single pole, national” allow to “concentrate efforts, centralize them and coordinate them”. “The passage of time is the worst enemy of the elucidation of a case, because sometimes the witnesses will live elsewhere, because the memory fades, for a thousand reasons”, adds the Keeper of the Seals. “And the older the files, the less they correspond to a form of legal news. This is not a reproach but an observation: when a new judge arrives in a cabinet, he has emergencies to manage.
As well, “the investigating magistrates will have complete freedom to continue with the initial investigators or to seize a service specialized in unsolved crimes, such as the Diane division in Pontoise”, specifies Eric Dupond-Moretti. The Keeper of the Seals also asserts that a “cosaisine with the initial investigators and the specialized services” will be “quite possible”.
There remains the crucial issue of the conservation of seals, considered as “a real problem of criminal policy” by Didier Seban. “Every day, these seals, which are sometimes extremely important proof, are destroyed, lost, damaged because they have been poorly preserved”, he laments. On this subject, the Minister remains for the moment rather vague. It simply indicates that a “Very particular attention will be paid both to the conservation of these pieces but also to their use and exploitation”. “A declaration of good intentions” for the specialist lawyer, who would like to see real progress here too “inscribed in the text”.