Can we trust a ministry that bears a name of virtue?
Posted by Michel Morvan on
Do you remember George Orwell's amazing 1984 , where the Ministry of Truth is in charge of the propaganda of the totalitarian party in power, and the Ministry of Love mercilessly hunts down any romantic rapprochement?
In real life, if we look closely, governments – is it out of cynicism or derision? – still use and abuse these offbeat names. For example, you find the Ministry of Human Rights in Burkina Faso, where “extrajudicial executions” are rife, and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the ban on peaceful demonstrations, political detention and brutal repression instituted as a form of government are rife [i] . But the prize in this area could be awarded to the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Repression of Vice instituted… in Saudi Arabia, part of whose population migrates every weekend to the seedy bars on the hot streets of Bahrain.
The prize, you say? What then should we think of our poor French Ministry of Justice, suffering from an average time taken to dispose of cases of 353 days? [ii] Are we prepared to bear the unfair consequences of overburdened courts and under-resourced resources?
We are pleased with the responsiveness of the public prosecutor's office to initiate criminal proceedings (and legal costs!) when a libidinous former president of the Republic laid his hand on a journalist's roundness. But what about the thousands of pending cases, which fall into oblivion while the victims despair of justice being done to them?
Among these victims, there are some unique ones, victims of the system itself. Not that all these litigants awaiting a constantly deferred decision cannot claim this title; but among them, the victims of judicial errors awaiting the review of their trial are the most to be pitied. Because they will have experienced stigmatization, humiliation, degradation, without any hope of one day seeing their lost dignity restored. Because they suffer from the injustice generated by Justice itself.
Bent under the yoke, the magistrates have become accustomed to their blinkers, thus losing sight of the nobility of their task. At the point of dereliction reached by the system, rendering justice has become a crazy idea; but deliberately not committing injustices could be an achievable goal. For example, by accepting the idea that Justice can be wrong, and by making a point of honor to admit and repair its faults.
A glaring example of dysfunction is the Lefort affair, recounted in the book Justice, for the honor of a priest . Eleven years of investigation, a trial marked by media and legal hype, eight years of imprisonment, eleven years of hope that justice will methodically examine the errors that may have tainted the administration of the evidence. Twenty-six years of frustration. François Lefort is one of those thousands of unfortunate people who despair that justice will ever be done to them.
The inadmissibility decision taken by the criminal division of the Court of Cassation in September despite the retraction of several victims is just another stone on this steep path. François Lefort will fight until his last breath for his innocence to be recognized.
[i] Amnesty International Report 2019
[ii] Studies No. 26 of the CEPEJ (European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice)