The Constitutional Council rejected this Friday, April 21 a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) on the system of searches in the ministries, raised by the defense of Eric Dupond-Moretti about the accusations of illegal taking of interests which target him, judging her “inoperative”.
Lawyers for the Keeper of the Seals, under threat of a lawsuit before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), considered that French law, which does not provide for any particular restriction during searches in a ministry, violated the principle of separation between the executive power and the judiciary.
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QPC “inoperative”
But the guarantor of the constitutionality of the laws recalls that this principle, which governs the institutions, is not as such “a right or freedom guaranteed by the Constitution” to litigants and cannot therefore be the subject of a QPC. Also, he“dismiss as inoperative”specifies its decision published on Friday.
The contested search took place at the Chancellery on July 1, 2021, in a judicial investigation for illegal taking of interests targeting Eric Dupond-Moretti, accused of having taken advantage of his function as minister to settle accounts with magistrates to whom he is was opposed when he was a lawyer.
The Minister has lodged eight appeals in this procedure, and in particular against the decision rendered in October by the CJR, ordering that he be tried. The Court of Cassation should examine them in the coming months.
