Magistrates and lawyers in Hauts-de-Seine have been warning for several months about their poor working conditions. The Council of State rejected their request this Thursday, as they protest against the number of magistrates to be assigned to the judicial tribunal in Nanterre.
Infinite delays in judgements, heaps of files always full and legal professionals who pull the string a little more every day, this is the daily life of the lawyers and magistrates of the Nanterre court, who have been alerting their conditions for several months of work very degraded.
To overcome these difficulties, the association of magistrates of the court of Nanterre and the bar of Hauts-de-Seine presented, last September, an action for excess of power against “workplace circular“, which determines the number of magistrates assigned to a court. In fact, according to Legal newsthe circular on the place of work (CLE) foresees only one more magistrate post in Nanterre, while there are almost 40 missing within the jurisdiction.
During a press conference, the magistrates and lawyers of Nanterre explained the reasons for this appeal. According to them, the CLE does not take into account the “specificity“of their jurisdiction, which”collapses in particular on the litigation of La Défense companies” and “cannot, as such, be treated as an ordinary court“.
For example, in the Nanterre court there are only three magistrates to handle all disputes relating to the La Défense business district, the Olympic Games and the Grand Paris Express project, again according to Olivia Dufour’s article for Legal news.
Last November, the appeal filed a few months earlier was accompanied by a summary suspension, which is nothing more than an emergency procedure initiated for “put pressure on the Keeper of Seals on this matter“, as pointed out by Me Michel Guichard, President of Hauts-de-Seine.
However, the judge of urgent instances of the Council of State, which only makes interim decisions in cases of urgency, this Thursday rejected the request presented by the association of magistrates of the court of Nanterre, on the grounds that “it is not up to the judge of the emergency instances of the Council of State to replace the assessment of the finance law on the determination of the total number of judicial magistrates in office“, the highest French administrative court, consulted by AFP, noted in its decision.
For the president of Hauts-de-Seine, Isabelle Clanet dit Lamanit, this is a sign of “recognition of the dramatic situation in Nanterre“. Before adding: “It seems to us that the reasons for the decision can be interpreted favorably because the judge recognizes that the excessive nature of the delays in the judgment is not disputed by the administration, as are the serious difficulties facing the judge. It seems to me that this decision can be usefully used in the context of the appeal on the merits“which was simultaneously filed before the Council of State.
The case of the Nanterre court in Hauts-de-Seine echoes the plight of many French courts. A year ago the a grandstand signed by 3,000 magistrates in the newspaper The world had created an electric shock and alerted about the working conditions.
From this podium, “the novelty is that the taboo has been removed, the unsaid has been removed, there is a real consensus that is not fake”said Vincent Sizaire, civil judge in Nanterre and representative of the Syndicate of the Judiciary, during Thursday’s visit of the two highest magistrates of the Court of Cassation, Christophe Soulard and François Molins.
Last October, the sudden death of Marie Truchet, vice-president of the criminal court of Nanterre, at the age of 44, while presiding over a hearing in immediate hearing, had the effect of an electric shock on the working conditions of the court of Nanterre Tribunal.
Source: AFP
