no “gross fault” of the State for the Court of Appeal

The Paris Court of Appeal confirmed on Tuesday that the State had not committed “heavy mistake” in the case of “fadettes“, an investigation during which the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) exploited the detailed telephone records of several black dresses. The case of “fadettes“Is closely linked to the so-called “wiretapping” or “Bismuth” file, targeting Nicolas Sarkozy, his lawyer Thierry Herzog and the former senior magistrate Gilbert Azibert, in which an appeal decision is expected on May 17.

As part of the investigations, in 2014, the PNF had opened a parallel investigation aimed at identifying who could have informed the former president and his lawyer that they were being tapped: the financial prosecutor’s office had examined the detailed invoices (“fadettes”) of nine lawyers and geolocated three of them, over a period of a few hours.

Request for repairs

This investigation, closed without further action in December 2019, was pounded by the defense of MM. Sarkozy, Herzog and Azibert, who notably affirmed that she had been “concealed” while she was on the defense. The excitement aroused by this affair had prompted the former Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet to request a report from the General Inspectorate of Justice (IGJ), which, in its conclusions delivered in September 2020, had seen no illegality but highlighted a number of irregularities.

It is in this context that the Bar Association had taken legal action in December 2020: they had requested 50,000 euros in compensation for a malfunction in the public service of Justice, denouncing in particular an attack on the professional secrecy of lawyers. At first instance, on November 3, 2021, the Paris court dismissed them, a decision confirmed on Tuesday by the Court of Appeal.

Read alsoWiretapping trial: three years suspended prison sentence required against Nicolas Sarkozy

Mistakes only “regrettable”

Here too, the court considered that, at the material time, the interference in the private lives of the lawyers concerned and their interlocutors was not disproportionate to the objective pursued. Concerning “lack of rigor” And “errors noted by the IGJ“, the court ruled that, “as regrettable as they are, (they) do not in themselves characterize a gross negligence such as to engage the responsibility of the State“.

Targeted himself while he was a lawyer by the peeling of his “fadettes“, the Minister of Justice Éric Dupond-Moretti had initiated proceedings on this subject, shortly after his entry into the government, against two magistrates of the PNF – since bleached. It is in particular this decision which is worth today to the Keeper of the Seals to be returned to justice for “illegal taking of interest– he lodged an appeal in cassation against this dismissal.