Ten years after Outreau, justice expects its reform

Ten years after Outreau, justice expects its reform



By Stéphane Durand-SoufflandStéphane Durand-souffland (Le Figaro)
22/02/2011


December 1, 2005, epilogue happy for "scrollable" six men and women that appeal against their conviction in the case of Outreau: their acquittal the Court of Assizes of appeal of Paris. Photo credits: PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP

First stops were made in February 2001. Four years later, the case is completed by a series of acquittals and a huge scandal.



Could anyone dreaming, paradoxically best foundations to rebuild thoroughly the French judicial system? December 1, 2005, the Court of Assizes of appeal of Paris pays six men and women who had appealed their conviction in Saint-Omer in July 2004. Thus ends, judicially speaking the Outreau case: four convictions final (20 and 15 years of imprisonment for couple Delay-Badaoui, 6 and 4 years in prison for couple Delplanque-Grenon), thirteen acquittals, a death - François Mourmand, found dead in his cell while he was in custody. J. Burgaud, bombed in the first place at the prestigious Paris, parquet anti-terror today is substitute at the service of execution of sentences, much less popular. He was sentenced, in 2009, une simple «réprimande»a simple "reprimand" by the Higher Council of the judiciary. Former Prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Gérald Lesigne, him, taken from the stripe: there is now General Prosecutor near the Court of appeal of Caen.

General dysfunction

The Outreau case is in remarkable dysfunction is General. Judges, prosecutors, police judiciary, bar, social services, expert psychologists and psychiatrists, measures Each of the players or observers was a lack of restraint at one time or another. Another specificity: rarely public opinion will be as passionate for a criminal record, leaving authority policy sufficient leeway to radically reshape the system.

However, ten years after the beginning of the sinking - first stops back to February 2001 - site remains unfinished. Profile cases follow, causing waves of emotion, evoking "furnaces" legislative retouching. But 80 parliamentary commission proposals at the end of a considerable work carried out by President André Vallini (PS) and the rapporteur Philippe Houillon (UMP), fell to oblivion.

Most importantly, the central question of l'avenir des juges d'instructionthe future of investigating judges remains outstanding. Although only 3 to 4% of files their return - including all those crimes-, these judges are emblematic of the inquisitorial system in sequence (as opposed to adversarial system in the Anglo-Saxon).

Nicolas Sarkozy announced in 2009, during the solemn re-entry of the Cour de cassation, intended to remove the function. The parliamentary commission, was envisaged to advocate this drastic measure, had finally opted for the establishment of a collegial, more compliant, according to its members, to the French judicial culture. Apparently, it will be neither one nor the other, nor less than judges, no more, not better.

Decisions of the Constitutional Council and de la Cour européenne des droits de l'hommeof the European Court of human rights have, indeed, shifted priorities: "the sword in the kidneys", in the words of Philippe Houillon need reforming custody significantly strengthening the rights of the defence at this crucial stage of the procedure. The judiciary, colossus with feet of clay, still jealous of their prerogatives. "This is an old lady who has neither culture of doubt, neither the apology, accuses Me Dupond-Moretti, l'affaire torpedo lawyer." When it is believed that students from the École nationale de la magistrature had thought to christen their promotion of Fabrice Burgaud name! "It's as if soldiers called their Waterloo barracks"...

Philippe Houillon, former President of the Commission of the laws, considers that the great and necessary reform has yet been started, ten years after the first arrests of Outreau, five years after the last acquittals. That the keyword is "assessment", jurisdiction by jurisdiction, needs and skills. Parliament considers that "everyone has to gain". But "everybody" in envy?