Five people and an association of the Church of Scientology are summoned before the criminal court for having deceived parents of students by practicing the principles of Scientology without their knowledge.
“You want to cancel this file Madam President. I wouldn’t say that I know, because I don’t know, I guess. You can (…). Everyone is fed up with this case.” On the first day of trial of the Aubert Institutethis private school suspected of deception for having hidden its links with the Church of Scientology from the parents of students, the questions of “deception” or “misleading advertising” were not addressed.
As for several years, what interested the parties was the definition of a reasonable time to be judged and that of a fair trial. The defense asked the Créteil Criminal Court to declare the proceedings null and void.
“We do not have a simple violation of the reasonable time. 24 years, a quarter of a century, it’s delusional, pleads Me David Apelbaum, who represents one of the defendants. You see yourself in a few hours, tomorrow, starting to report the facts? ‘In 1998….’.”
This Wednesday morning, no more civil action was in the file, the last family announced their withdrawal at the start of the trial in a letter addressed to the court. In this letter, this family, whose two daughters were 6 and 8 years old at the start of the investigation, who are now 31 and 33 years old, heard by this decision protest against the “mistreatment” of the institution. judicial proceedings that their lawyer had denounced.
In 1998, the mayor of Vincennes made several reports to the public prosecutor of Créteil on the Aubert Institute. A preliminary investigation and then a judicial inquiry are opened. A first dismissal order was issued in 2012. Decision appealed, which ultimately resulted in a judgment of the Paris Court of Appeal dismissing five people and an organization from the Church of Scientology. The trial had taken more than three years to be heard.
“We are the second oldest case in French judicial history to be tried”, indignant Me Apelbaum, defense lawyer.
“It is not the fault of the defendants if the investigation lasted 10 years, if the order for reference was seized of an appeal, if this file took three years to be heard, if this file slept on offices,” he continues. The lawyer defends the main defendant, the former manager of the Aubert Institute, prosecuted for “misleading nature”, “misleading advertising”, “concealed work” and “misuse of property”. This woman, now 76 years old, is absent, her state of health not allowing her presence. For the lawyer, this situation justifies a “termination of public action”.
“His will was to come and wash his honor,” laments his advice.
“It is time for this case to be submitted to public debate in an objective way,” retorted the public prosecutor of Créteil.
“Time does not corrupt everything, it can extinguish, it can water down, lessen, it can mitigate responsibility, it is the responsibility of the sentence”, he continues, denouncing “the attempt at psychological destabilization” made by the defense.
At the heart of the pleadings of the defense lawyers, article 6 of the convention of the European Court of Human Rights which guarantees the right to a fair trial. “Discrimination is the basis of this case”, insists Me Élodie Maumont, who defends a defendant tried for “complicity in deception”. “It is manifest, obvious, completely transparent that this is not an investigation carried out on the Aubert Institute, but on the Church of Scientology as a monstrous entity, guilty in advance”, abounds Me Apelbaum.
“Let’s put an end to this trial, let’s go out with our heads held high and let justice finally take its responsibilities,” he continues.
Sitting on a chair facing the Créteil criminal court, the four defendants present, three men and one woman, people of a certain age, all admitted during the investigation to be Scientologists. “You would have abandoned your religious convictions and you will not be there and I will not be there to plead”, launches to his client Me Maumont.
In the viewfinder of the lawyers, the director of the investigation accused of “impartiality”. Another lawyer recalls that his client was placed in police custody for 48 hours, heard in the middle of the night. “There was no one to stop it,” laments the lawyer as ten investigating judges followed one another on this case. His annotations are also in question, he who qualified certain defendants as “Nazis”.
For the public prosecutor, these arguments are based on the merits of the case, which must be judged by the court. “Let’s go on the merits, that’s all we ask the public prosecutor,” decided the representative of the prosecution.
