They have been met with rejection. Two investigating judges and investigators have been unable to enter Tuesday the Elysée to conduct a search. These judges investigate the award conditions of sure public contracts for the group of official ceremonies.
Of their viewfinder, in accordance with The Chained Duckthe selection of the identical group, Shortcut Occasions, to prepare the entry ceremonies of personalities in the Pantheon between 2002 and 2024. A judicial investigation for favoritism, unlawful taking of curiosity, corruption and affect peddling was opened on October 2, writes the prosecutor of the Nationwide Monetary Prosecutor’s Workplace in a press launch consulted by 20 Minutes.
The Elysée opens a door
As a part of this investigation, numerous locations have been focused by searches on Tuesday: properties, but in addition workplaces of the Presidency of the Republic. Based on the prosecutor, “entry to the companies of the Elysée was not approved”. To justify this refusal, the Elysée produced “an evaluation”, continues the prosecutor, “in accordance with which article 67 of the Structure would entail the inviolability of the premises hooked up to the Presidency of the Republic”.
The Elysée, metropolis couple Reutersnevertheless, opened a approach of cooperation with the investigators, by telling them “that the paperwork of the brokers of the Élysée, removable from the exercise of the Head of State and thus communicable, could be transmitted to them on request, because the presidency often does with the judicial authority or the CADA (Fee for Entry to Administrative Paperwork)”.
“Fairly questionable”
May the Elysée brandish this “Structure” joker to refuse entry to judges and investigators on Tuesday? “That appears fairly questionable to me,” responds 20 Minutes Mathieu Carpentier, professor of public legislation on the College of Toulouse-Capitole. To know, we should have a look at what’s contained in this article 67 of the Constitution cited by the Elysée. Its first paragraph establishes presidential irresponsibility. In different phrases, a President of the Republic isn’t answerable for the acts he performs as president.
This query of irresponsibility “has already arisen not directly, and it has indirectly already been determined by the Court docket of Cassation in 2012 within the so-called Élysée polls affair”, remembers Mathieu Carpentier. “The prosecution initially refused to hold out a preliminary investigation, exactly on the grounds that it might result in searches on the Élysée,” underlines the professor. “What the Court docket of Cassation then affirmed – even when we had indirectly determined whether or not searches have been potential – was that presidential irresponsibility didn’t lengthen to all of the individuals who contribute to the train of the presidential operate, and positively didn’t lengthen to the collaborators of the President of the Republic. »
A search within the Benalla affair
Following the logic of this judgment, “the concept is as follows: because the collaborators of the President of the Republic aren’t lined by presidential irresponsibility, nothing prevents one of many legal proceedings from being launched towards them, and if needed, their office being searched. »
That is the precept which appears to have been adopted in 2018. On the time, in the course of the Benalla affair, law enforcement officials had searched the workplace on the Elysée of Alexandre Benalla. The Elysée companies didn’t oppose the work of the investigators. As administrative workers, Emmanuel Macron’s former bodyguard isn’t protected by presidential irresponsibility.
An intensive studying of the Structure?
To know the reasoning made by the Elysée on Tuesday, we should have a look at the second paragraph of article 67. This specifies that the president can’t, throughout his mandate, be required to testify nor be the topic of an motion, an act of data, instruction or prosecution. It’s in all probability on an in depth studying of this paragraph that the Elysée depends when evoking “the inviolability of the premises hooked up to the Presidency of the Republic”.
“To say that the inviolability of the President of the Republic within the face of acts of data, preliminary investigation or instruction extends to the premises by which the President of the Republic workouts his capabilities, and that consequently these premises could be as inviolable because the individual of the President of the Republic, I discover that fairly unusual,” analyzes Mathieu Carpentier. Nonetheless, “we might, if needed, help such an interpretation of article 67”.
In 2007, on the finish of Jacques Chirac’s presidency, two judges investigating the loss of life of a Justice of the Peace discovered useless in 1995 in Djibouti, could not search the Elysée. The companies of the palace on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré had additionally invoked article 67 of the Structure.
To place an finish to this battle of interpretation, a court docket choice must be made, explains Mathieu Carpentier: “For the Court docket of Cassation to determine, the investigators must power the doorways of the Élysée, after which the nullity of the search could be raised in the course of the process. And thatin nicethe legal chamber of the Court docket of Cassation finds itself having to rule. » A extremely inconceivable situation.
