01.06.19, contribution 21, compensation 31, assize courts, police officers,

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Paris, Saturday, June 1st, 2019

CONTRIBUTION (21) TO THE NATIONAL DEBATE WISHED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC IN 2019.

INDEMNIFICATION (31), PROCEDURE AND REFERRAL IN ASSISTANCE OF A POLICE OFFICER. (Continuation of reflection No. 30 of April 29, 2019 and number 29 of April 5, 2019, see: madic50)

In previous reflections on the political and judicial use of compensation (see: February 1, 2019), I develop the conception of a new judicial procedure and I propose experimentation.

A police officer is sent to the Assize Court for facts arising from the performance of his duties.

The description of the referral is: "willful violence by a person in charge of public authority resulting in mutilation or permanent disability".

The magistrates act as they see fit and the procedure will take its course.

This reference to effects:

1- In the State, between police officers and magistrates, between the executive and the judicial authority, between executors and hierarchy of the police.

2- Between the State and the population, by the disqualification of the executing officials of the police.

3- Between the state and the activists.

3- The political consequences are therefore to come.

The object of this reflection is on the legal mechanics and its possible evolutions.

Indeed, legal action is presented here as the implementation of a mechanism: there is "mutilation or permanent disability" so there is Assize Course.

This gear is certified by the argument of the opposition to this referral made by the Public Prosecutor's Office, with a view to returning the police officer to the Correctional Court. He wanted to bring the destruction of one eye for a temporary loss of sight because of possible future technical solutions. It loses on the finding of permanence of the disability.

This judicial mechanism may seem like a strict application of the law.

a- This is the case in this logical sequence of violence that causes permanent mutilations, which lead to the Assize Course.

b- But even when the law does not organize any gear, the magistrates are in a

mechanics that leads them to conform the facts to an accusing legality.

Thus, in the Saboundjian case, the popular jury acquitted the police officer in 2013. On appeal, the jury composed of magistrates condemned the above, in 2017.

This mechanism is constituted by the absolute subordination of the appreciation of fraud to the penal process.

We see the action of the prosecutor to avoid the Assize Court to the police officer that the determination of the fraud is completely subordinated to the criminal course. It is only an operational issue of the criminal procedure. His only conclusion is the quality of the dismissal: Assize Court or Correctional Court.

It follows that, from the moment that justice can not relegate plaintiffs to oblivion, indictment is mandatory to enable them to assert their rights to compensation.

This indictment is in fact a guilty plea. The recognition of this is the only way to assess the fraud and compensate the victim. It will take several years.

The logic of this legal mechanism is therefore primarily the initial production of a culprit.

The justice appoints the fault which is offered to him and qualifies guilty before the judgment the person who is designated so publicly.

The defendant is already registered in guilt by his sole reference to the Assize Court.

This is the initial designation of a culprit. The charge decides the verdict of guilt. The Tribunal has lost its sovereign function. He only makes the required sentence prior to his meeting.

The criminal exclusivity of the proceedings deprives the magistrates of the procedural means of distinguishing between a "culprit" whose fault is professional and may give rise to a judgment and a "guilty party" whose action is criminal.

a- Either, they give discharge to the police officer of the legal use of the force. They then dismiss the plaintiffs and return them to their endless pain.

b- Either, they produce a culprit, judge it and in a programmed way condemn it. They then agree with the plaintiff, in this case a protester.

In doing so, no judicial authority is empowered to distinguish between recognition of fraud and its remedy, possible criminal misconduct and judgment.

From there, the production of a culprit becomes the purpose of the procedure in order to give reason to the plaintiff and to compensate him. It is only on the basis of the recognition of this guilt of the defendant and his conviction that the plaintiff can be compensated.

The practical consequence of this beautiful mechanism is to subordinate justice to the political conflicts which provoked the clashes of which it judges.

Under the appearance of the evidences of the procedure, the criminal exclusivity of the procedure leads to the production of an initial culprit and this one opens the space of a taking party in the conflict in question.

In the Saboundjian case, the Attorney General will turn to the plaintiff in court and will show his support.

In the Legay case, it is clear that the accused policeman is substituted for the client.

In the case of police officer M., 2016, no one hides that justice meets civil political expectations.

Etc.

It is not surprising that the networks of political confrontations, even under other names, arrive in the courtrooms if the procedure itself calls them there.

Indeed, for the modern political networks, this procedure becomes the receptacle of the civil political conflicts of which they live. She is their new training ground.

Access to justice becomes one of the goals of political action. The prior blaming of a target is the driving force of this penetration.

These political groups place the police in judicial accusations with the titles of their violence as they place their interlocutors in criminal defendants under the criminalization of their opinions.

The judgment of a policeman becomes the repetition of the civil confrontation. But this repetition propels political groups within the state.

a- The civilians mark a point by placing the representative of the State in the dock of the accused.

b- In this way, they get a redefinition of their reports to the police in their civil struggles; both in the street and in institutions.

The police do not go to the Assize Court by being already guilty by the mere fact of the procedure.

This is only implemented because the exclusivity of the criminal procedure and the prior indictment of a target allows the political forces that organize themselves in courtrooms under the guise of supporting the victim, to accept by justice the construction of a balance of power claim that requires the initial appointment, in other words the sacrifice, of a culprit.

These groups may see it as a pre-emption of justice.

The magistrates think themselves the Masters of a procedure that they handle constantly. However, in certain circumstances, they are the toys.

Given the results, it is legitimate to question the effectiveness of this judicial process.

The magistrates act according to the procedure, certainly, but is it the right one?

A procedure that would immediately distinguish the criminal from the indemnity would change the way in which justice operates in this type of case.

It would allow:

1- To clear the justice of the ambiguity of the links of the current procedure with the political conflicts that accompany it.

2- Compensation, not spoiling the Treasury, which is consistent. Victims of the Mediator's case say "decent".

3- Serious judicial study of all aspects of alleged misconduct by public order officials (such as reporting relationships and use of the police as compensation for the absence of the policy).

4- The distinction between the direct consequences and the excessive consequences of a legal action.

It is the lonely authority of the Head of State to experiment with certain aspects of this evolution of the procedure; such as the terms of the compensation.

The Servier case, known as the Médiator case, has already set up this separation but as an arrangement between the victims and the company concerned. Justice is there according to Call.

However, only the magistrates can direct the compensation and the penal.

Clearly, the current procedure is unable to respond to the complexity of the situations and the judicial questions asked.

The only way out of this impasse is reflection.

If we believe the police unionists it becomes urgent.

Marc SALOMONE