Observation shared by the former mayor of Thionville, who after retiring from political life returned to the profession of lawyer. “We have reached a point that is difficult to believe: I have in mind some cards that show the degree of difficulty we are in. And I say it right away: not because of the magistrates, who work a lot. But for the lack of means to be able to carry out their missions! “Me Mertz explains in the preamble. Then bring up this file where a complaint waited five long years for a judicial investigation to open! Or this in which a criminal complaint waited two years to lead to the dismissal so that, finally, after a complaint with a civil action, the crime was recognized … Cite this file again, on simple paper as pie: an unscrupulous seller who had used the company’s cash register on his own. After two years, the case was closed without further action without the file showing the slightest act of investigation. Few lines in hundreds, probably thousands across the country.
Dysfunction
Don’t get me wrong, these dysfunctions constitute much more than administrative insults, which would already be very harmful: «The role of justice is precisely to restore what has not worked! What feelings can quarrels feel in the face of this, if they do not have the impression that there is no justice ”, Me Mertz emphasizes again.
Right and left together, the Moselle lawyer believes that the responsibility for the current situation, the result of a slow deterioration, is shared, even if it is tempered: «There were periods in which things were undertaken. Today, for example, hiring is underway. But what is announced to us will not live up to the need to restore a situation that is otherwise at the origin of a real loss of confidence in our democracy! “
“A power, not a ministry!” “
A rather gloomy inventory that Me Mertz completes with an observation: “He is in tune with a Keeper of Seals who, having been referred to the Court of Justice of the Republic (decision against which he challenged in cassation, ed), quietly lets it be known through the voice of his lawyers who believe that the magistrates are manipulating justice against him … While he has, as Minister of Justice, the responsibility of defending the impartiality of the judges … “
What if the woodworm was in the fruit of design? “If we re-read Montesquieu, we can argue that it is curious that justice is a“ simple ”ministry, therefore part of the executive. Not to mention the question of the prosecution’s lack of independence vis-à-vis the Chancellery. This, even if the judiciary should be, according to the principle of tripartition, a power in its own right like the executive and the legislature … ”
