Judge Levrault’s disciplinary file deflates before the Superior Council of the Judiciary
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The disciplinary hearing of Edouard Levrault, ex-investigating judge seconded to Monaco, to which the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM) devoted a long day, Wednesday August 31, gave birth to a mouse. The director of judicial services, Paul Huber, in the role of the prosecutor in this procedure, certainly asked to note that the disciplinary faults which had been denounced in September 2021 by Prime Minister Jean Castex are established, but he immediately specified that they deserved no punishment.
The case, however, seemed of the highest gravity, given the sequence that led to this hearing: a complaint against Edouard Levrault filed with great noise in June 2020 with the Minister of Justice, Nicole Belloubet, by Eric Dupond-Moretti in as a lawyer for the former head of the Monegasque judicial police; an administrative inquiry into this magistrate ordered to the General Inspectorate of Justice by the lawyer who became minister less than a month after his appointment, on July 6, Place Vendôme; a deportation decree signed on October 23, 2020 to avoid situations of conflict of interest by entrusting the Prime Minister with the management of the files that Mr. Dupond-Moretti had to deal with in his life as a lawyer; an indictment of the Minister for “illegal taking of interest”, in particular for having intervened in the Levrault procedure; the referral to the CSM, finally, by Prime Minister Jean Castex, on September 15, 2021, of a disciplinary procedure against this magistrate for ethical breaches of the duties of reserve and delicacy and his obligation of prudence due to comments made in the press on the conditions of his brutal eviction from his functions on the Rock.
Céline Parisot, president of the Union of magistrates, speaking on Wednesday in support of Edouard Levrault, now vice-president of the Nice court, had a good time exclaiming ” All that for this “ in response to the indictment delivered by Mr. Huber on behalf of the Prime Minister.
Limits to freedom of expression
The heart of the matter relates to the limits to the freedom of expression of a magistrate. Edouard Levrault is criticized for remarks “controversies” and “outrageous expressions” in an article by The Obs from October 24, 2019, a program from France 3 from June 10, 2020 and another from France 2 from January 7, 2021. These public interventions have “damaged the image and credit of French justice”says Huber.
“I realized that in Monaco justice should be an institution that helps, not disturbs”said the judge, convinced that the non-renewal of his secondment decided in extremis in June 2019 by the Monegasque executive was linked to the investigations he was carrying out in the case concerning Dmitri Rybolovlev, owner of the football club of the principality and close to Prince Albert.
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