The former tenor of the bar, appointed head of the Chancellery in the summer of 2020 and reappointed to this post after the re-election in May of Emmanuel Macron, is summoned at 9:00 a.m. with his lawyers before the commission of instruction of the CJR .
The latter, who indicted him for illegal taking of interest in July 2021, will tell him if she has decided to have him appear before his court formation, the only one empowered to judge members of the government for crimes or misdemeanors committed. in the exercise of their mandate.
For the minister himself, whose relations with the judiciary are notoriously difficult, the decision is no mystery: he said on Tuesday that he had «virtual assurance» of being fired.
His lawyers, My Christophe Ingrain and Rémi Lorrain, also told AFP on Friday that they had «no illusions about the meaning of the decision».
In this event, it would be a first for a Minister of Justice still in office.
“I have always said that I held my legitimacy from the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister and from them alone,” he however declared on Tuesday.
His dismissal would not fail to raise once again the question of the maintenance of the government of the former criminal lawyer.
Eric Dupond-Moretti is accused of having taken advantage of his position, once at the head of the Ministry of Justice, to settle accounts with magistrates with whom he had had trouble when he was a lawyer, which he dispute.
– «Fadettes» –
Complaints from magistrates’ unions and the anticorruption association Anticor, denouncing two situations of conflict of interest since his arrival at the Chancellery, had given rise to the opening of a judicial investigation in January 2021.
The first case concerns the administrative investigation he ordered in September 2020 against three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF).
They had had his detailed telephone bills (“fadettes”) go through when Mr. Dupond-Moretti was still a star at the bar in order to flush out a possible mole who would have informed Nicolas Sarkozy that he was being wiretapped in the corruption case. called «Paul Bismuth».
A PNF deputy prosecutor, Patrice Amar, and his ex-boss, Eliane Houlette, appeared in September before the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM), which is due to render its decision on October 19. No sanction was required against them.
The third magistrate implicated, Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss, was cleared before any hearing before the CSM.
In the second case, the Keeper of the Seals is accused of having initiated administrative proceedings against a former investigating judge seconded to Monaco, Edouard Levrault, who had indicted one of his ex-clients. Eric Dupond-Moretti had criticized his «cowboy» methods.
The CSM decided on September 15 not to sanction Mr. Levrault, considering that «no disciplinary breach could be blamed on him».
A decision that sounded like a disavowal of the minister.
Throughout the investigation, Eric Dupond-Moretti repeated that he had only «follow the recommendations of his administration».
An argument that did not convince the public prosecutor: in May he requested a trial against the minister.
