Juvenile delinquency, judicial backlog, prison overcrowding: the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti, engaged in a game of questions and answers with citizens on Friday in Hérault, welcoming a justice system that is improving thanks to means increased, but recognizing that much remained to be done. At the invitation of local Macronist MP Patrick Vignal, the Minister of Justice acted as a teacher for a good two hours, in front of some 200 people gathered in the multipurpose room of Mudaison, a town near Montpellier.
The civilized debates took the form of a series of “QAGC” (Questions to the government by citizens), based on the model of QAG by deputies in the National Assembly. Prepared in advance, the questions were asked by the father of a teenager attacked in the street, a representative of the municipal police, a real estate agency manager or a lawyer who is a member of the Young Bar of Montpellier. “The Ministry of Justice is the ministry of misfortune, it is intended to intervene downstream, not upstream” of crimes and misdemeanors, explained the former lawyer in his deep voice.
“Justice cannot be resolved with truncheons”
But “justice cannot repair everything and often the victims come out with a kind of frustration”, admitted the Minister of Justice, stressing that it was impossible for him to intervene in particular cases or comment on court decisions. , inherently independent of political power. Eric Dupond-Moretti also mentioned an understanding “better than ever” between himself and the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, another heavyweight in the government.
“We have hired additional police officers, we are going to recruit 1,500 magistrates and 1,800 clerks, but it takes time,” the minister explained to those in the audience who found that justice does not meet citizens’ expectations. At the start of the day, the former tenor of the bar had spent several hours at the judicial court of Béziers in Hérault, where additional resources made it possible to begin to clear the judicial backlog, that is to say the files late, in matters of divorce in particular, and where this jurisdiction now functions “very well”, according to him.
“I criticize some for having no nuance. Justice cannot be resolved with truncheons. Those who talk about ‘zero delinquency’, if they come to power, they will never get there,” also declared Eric Dupond-Moretti, an allusion to his far-right adversaries, strong in this region of southern France, but who did not appear on this occasion.