The public ministry of the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) announced on Tuesday that it had requested a trial against the former lawyer and current Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, indicted for illegal taking of interests last July.
According to a press release from the general prosecutor’s office at the Court of Cassation, the public prosecutor judged that there were “sufficient charges” against the Keeper of the Seals to refer him to the CJR, the only court authorized to prosecute and judge ministers for offenses committed in the performance of their duties.
The final decision on a possible referral of the minister to the CJR now rests with the institution’s investigation committee.
Eric Dupond-Moretti, appointed to the government in the summer of 2020, has been indicted for acts of illegal taking of interest since July 2021.
Settling scores
The Minister of Justice is suspected of having taken advantage of his position to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had been in conflict when he was a lawyer.
Complaints from magistrates’ unions and the anti-corruption association Anticor, denouncing two situations of conflict of interest, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation. Summoned by the magistrates of the CJR on the two files, he had refused to answer their questions.
The first file concerns the administrative investigation he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) who had had his detailed telephone bills examined when he was still a star at the bar. In the second case, he is accused of having instituted administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Edouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients and whose methods he had criticized ” cowboy”.
Eric Dupond-Moretti has always insisted that he had only “follow the recommendations” of his administration.