Chronicler of major legal affairs on television for thirty-two years, he published a book of memories entitled “The hearing is open”, and subtitled “Chronicles of a failing justice” … Dominique Verdeilhan returns for us on some cases emblematic, while questioning the future of justice.
Dominique
Verdeilhan
Journalist
You have relived for this book in notes taken during more than thirty years of judicial chronicle. Was it difficult to leave this universe?
I quit television, but I did not quit justice. Besides, this book is undoubtedly for me a way of prolonging this love that I feel for a world in which I arrived by chance, more than thirty years ago. It was a Friday night. My head of department said to me: “What are you doing on Monday?” I answer him: “Nothing”. He then tells me something that will change my life: “There is a lawsuit to cover, you go.” I had never set foot in an assize court! It was for me the discovery of a world both exciting and scary, and especially the beginning of a long story.
Is there a recipe for chronicling justice?
Let’s say we tell it our own way. Some do it with great talent. For my part, I never lose sight of the fact that I am neither a judge, nor a prosecutor, nor a lawyer. I am only a witness, so here to help the viewer yesterday, the reader today, to understand, to decipher, to forge a conviction. I give elements, but I have always refused to give lessons. After, obviously, there are cases, moments of hearing, pains which mark more than others. Like Outreau, of course, like the assassination of young Audrey in Île-de-Ré, or the disappearance of Cécile Vallin in 1997, at the age of 17, a young girl her father continues to seek today. ‘hui… But all is not black either in this universe of justice, fortunately.
What do you think ?
I am thinking of the case of the little martyrdom of the A10, which is an abominable story but in which we are dealing with investigators, magistrates who never gave up, who were obsessed with giving a name to this victim and find the perpetrators of this crime. Which ended up happening after 31 years. In these cases, when justice goes all the way, it completely fulfills its role vis-à-vis society.
You alternately approach the human aspect and the technical aspect of justice. Have you not sometimes had the impression that the two were difficult to reconcile?
From the moment when, a simple witness sitting on my press bench, I felt emotions, revolts, very strong feelings, I very quickly wondered about this question. On this coexistence of a cold and technical procedure used to treat an eminently human matter. This is why I try in this book, as I have done throughout my career, to take the reader by the hand and to explain to him why, through certain cases, justice can appear so complex.
The courts are regularly criticized for not knowing how to adapt to changes in society …
The problem is that we tend to pile up texts, to pass laws after each news item, without a real and ambitious fundamental reform being undertaken. While some resounding fiascos like the Grégory affair or that of Outreau should have provoked a major reform …
Let’s talk about these two cases, which you discuss in your book …
In my opinion, they perfectly illustrate this lack of ambition. Grégory, it was after all an absolute legal catastrophe! However, each time this type of accident has occurred, commissions have been set up, which themselves have made recommendations, which in the end have never or very little been applied. We have the impression of a justice that does not question itself, with magistrates who have failed and who continue to work as if nothing had happened. This was the case after Grégory, after Outreau, but we could also talk about the Beaudis affair or that of Tarnac, which makes it impossible to say today that we will not face, one day, to a new judicial earthquake.
During all these years, have you put yourself in the shoes of those you observed?
Did I project myself? On the dock, sincerely, never. On that of the civil parties, yes, because it can happen to all of us. But above all, I have already imagined myself in the place of the jurors, wondering each time what I would do in their place. The court chroniclers, on the occasion of a long deliberation, willingly play a kind of game consisting in making predictions on the conviction to come. But it doesn’t come out of a tiny circle and doesn’t really involve us. Jurors have a whole other responsibility!
Despite these thirty-two years of judicial chronicle, we never feel any weariness in your words …
Because this material is of immense human wealth. And that justice, which is certainly open to criticism and sometimes flawed, is constantly evolving, which has made it, despite everything, more understandable, more human. I am thinking, for example, of the possibility of appealing an assize verdict, which was not the case until 2000, or of the reasons for the judgments, which make it possible to understand on what the jurors relied for to determine.
Your profession has also evolved a lot over time, especially with the live tweets of the trials. Do you see this as progress?
It’s a new writing, which has shifted into the instantaneous, the factual. But it is true that this puts aside the analytical, educational dimension, which must accompany – it seems to me – this type of chronicle. There, we follow in real time and we move on to the next trial. It is another type of information consumption.
What have you learned as a man from these hours spent on the benches of the courts?
Above all, I feel a lot of humility towards this universe. The machine certainly seems open to criticism, but I have never felt capable of accomplishing the work of these men and women, whether they are lawyers or magistrates, for whom I have great respect. What I regret, however, is that justice has never been considered a priority project, that it has never been given the means it deserves. I have the impression that it is the great forgotten one of our democracy, whereas it is asked to settle everything with poor means! And I’m afraid that one day it will explode …
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