It’s a frontal attack to say the least. The Minister of Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, violently attacked the Magistrates’ Union, clified on the left, on Wednesday. In question ? The union was invited to Huma Festival, which will take place from Friday on the former air base 217 of Plessis-Pâté (Essonne). “The Judicial Union is not justice,” said the Minister of Justice on the sidelines of a visit to the court in Narbonne (Aude).
Questioned about the presence of this union of magistrates at the Huma Festival, alongside the Union of Lawyers of France (SAF), Dupond-Moretti vehemently denounced this union organization at the origin of a complaint against him , with the Union of Magistrates (majority in the profession), before the Court of Justice of the Republic for suspicion of illegal taking of interests. The minister is due to be tried soon in this case.
“Wall of idiots”
“The Magistrates’ Union did not understand what this pathetic event was, the wall of idiots,” said the Minister of Justice, referring to a ten-year-old affair, when a sign entitled “wall of idiots” with photographs of right-wing political figures, magistrates, journalists and also parents of crime victims had been discovered in the union’s premises. The former president of the union was convicted of “public insult” in the context of this affair, revealing, for part of the public, the partiality of the justice system.
“Since I have been a minister, I have witnessed, helplessly, a certain number of slip-ups” on the part of the Magistrates’ Union, maintained Dupond-Moretti. Before adding: “The Magistrates’ Union took up the cause of the rioters. » Recalling that the union “did not want to participate” in the Estates General of Justicehe quipped: “he probably prefers to go and contest at the Fête de l’Humanité”.
“Appearance of impartiality”
“Trade unionism must have great freedom of expression,” he conceded before adding that “this freedom must be combined with neutrality, impartiality and the appearance of impartiality.”
This weekend, representatives of the union are expected to participate in debates on Justice and a round table “on identity checks and police violence”. “We do not come to the Huma Festival with our magistrate’s dress, we do not come to judge anyone but to debate, as part of our union activity,” reacted Wednesday the president of the SM, Kim Reuflet, on the website of Point.