It is an unexpected book that has just published Maître Hervé Lehman, lawyer in Paris, on the Eric Dupont-Moretti trial. Rather than defending the former Keeper of the Seals, as it is customary in his profession, Maître Lehman proves by a plus B that he was well guilty of illegal taking of interest. Rest assured, it is only a book and Eric Dupond-Moretti was released by the Court of Justice of the Republic. The latter, made up of three professional judges and 12 deputies and senators, said that there was no illegal takeover of the minister in the administrative investigation case which he had ordered against three Magistrates of the national financial prosecutor’s office.
Dupont-Moretti at the Marigny Theater
The book is coming out of time since Eric Dupont-Moretti is in representation at the Marigny Theater, in Paris, this Saturday, February 1. “After 4 years at the head of the Ministry of Justice, he goes back on stage to share his experience and tell as anyone what being minister and behind the scenes of this function,” said the director to attract the barge.
Another word to justify the relevance of publication of this article in Oise weekly. Hervé Lehman has been the lawyer for Oise week for thirty years. Eric Dupont-Moretti tried to do politics in Hauts-de-France to regional in 2021. And Ulrika Delaunay-Weiss, one of the complainants concerned by the administrative inquiry, was a prosecutor of the Republic in Compiègne.
The book laughs like a novel by Barbouzes
Back to the book that reads like a novel. Hervé Lehman recalls the tumultuous career of this great lawyer, great mouth, nicknamed acquittator, who became minister when he had sworn on television that he would obviously refuse this position if he was offered. Emmanuel Macron appoints him to the government because he wanted to destroy the National School of Magistracy and, that he wanted to end ENA.
The Dupont-Moretti affair begins in June 2020 when The point reveals that the telephone bills of Eric Dupont-Moretti were analyzed by the police at the request of the national financial prosecutor’s office. A month later, the Keeper of the Seals, Nicole Belloubet, ordered an investigation into this case.
“La” illegal interest
In Sepetmber, the report of the General Inspectorate of Justice reveals dysfunctions to the national financial prosecutor’s office. Eric Dupont-Moretti, who became a Keeper of the Seals, orders an administrative investigation into the three magistrates of the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office which carried out the investigation.
It would be an illegal taking of interest. The Minister has a personal interest in this administrative investigation directed against three magistrates to whom he had criticized, as a lawyer, an “barbouzarde investigation”, an “illegal process” and other negative qualifications.
In July 2021, the minister was indicted. Emmanuel Macron is re -elected President of the Republic and confirms the Keeper of the Seals at his post.
The trial took place in November 2023.
The relentless prosecutor
At the end of the debates, Remy Heitz, Attorney General, is severe and convincing. “We are dealing here with a conflict of interest which degenerates in illegal interest. We switch to excess power. Also the minister had no choice but to abstain or deport (…) but the minister avenged the lawyer. “
The accusation also says: “The search for a material advantage is not necessary, personal satisfaction is enough” for the offense to be formed. In addition, the intention is established because the minister is aware of this situation of conflict of interest. Remy Heitz requires a year in suspended prison sentence.
Inspired lawyers
For Me Remi Lorrain, lawyer for the Minister, interest, in an illegal taking of interest, cannot be moral. In addition, the minister did not take revenge. He followed the opinions of his administration. His other lawyer, Me Jacqueline Laffont, launches: “This trial is the trial of her life. There will be no others, neither before nor after. Eric Dupont-Moretti was the pride of our profession (…). He was the artist of the courts, known for his excesses, his sense of justice, sometimes his impulsiveness but never blows low. Today is a man who is wrongly accused and who suffers from it. He is neither a man of blows nor a man of concealment. Duplicity is foreign to him. He was dragged in the mud for years. ” And concludes: “I ask you to relax it because it is not guilty of anything.”
Permanent relaxation
Eric Dupont-Moretti is released.
The judges estimated that there was no intentional element, that Eric Dupont-Moretti had not wanted to commit the offense of illegal interest.
The Attorney General renounces to appeal to cassation.
A very accusing relaxation
Inevitably, the twelve senators and deputies of the jury, against three professional magistrates, have tipped the scourge of justice on the side of the release. The judgment, written by the president, resembles a conviction, written as a conviction, but with a final relaxation decision. The material interest that the minister had had to command administrative investigations in cases he had known as a lawyer. Moral interest is in the fact of committing the offense. This is why the penalty experience of Mr. Dupond-Moretti, the fact that he has withdrawn his complaint, and the knowledge of the objective situations of conflicts “do not establish the sufficient conscience that he could have expose to the commission of an illegal takeover of interest ”.
The judge writes “do not establish” while the logical continuation of the argument is “establish”.
It’s a bit like Paul who steals an apple.
And the judge who would write: “It is because he was a well-known pilfund, it is because he was hungry that day, it is because he looked around to verify that He was not watched and it was because he quickly stole the apple to slide her under his shirt that Paul did not intend to fly. ”
The Minister, lawyer for 35 years, did not know the law
Hervé Lehman laughs in turn: “The minister was released although he committed two illegal taking of interest, but unwittingly because, a criminal lawyer for thirty-five years, he did not know what c ‘was.”
Beyond the legal argument, the book is interesting by what it tells about the functioning of justice at the highest level of the Republic. And in our opinion, the public prosecutor’s office and the unions who had complained against Dupont-Moretti also committed the offense of illegal interest because they had a moral advantage to be won in the minister’s conviction.
