Dupond-Moretti pursued in defamation by the magistrate Edouard Levrault-Liberation

The magistrate Edouard Levrault continues in defamation the ex-guardian of the seals Eric Dupond-Moretti, who accuses him in his book and his show I said yes! Violation of the secrecy of the investigation, his lawyer announced on Tuesday April 8, François Saint-Pierre on Tuesday, April 8. This new episode of the long -term conflict between the two men will be played before the 17th Chamber of the Paris Criminal Court, during a hearing whose date must be determined on May 12. The magistrate, former investigating judge of Monaco, reproaches Eric Dupond-Moretti for accusing him of having violated the secret of instruction to the detriment of one of his clients, in his book as on stage. He asked the ex-minister and his publisher, Michel Lafon, 30,000 euros in damages, as well as a judicial publication measure.

Appointed Keeper of the Seals in July 2020, after thirty-six years to win his nickname « Acquittator » in French Assizes, Eric Dupond-Moretti had been accused a few weeks later to use his new functions as minister to settle old accounts with magistrates. Shortly after his appointment to the Chancellery in the summer of 2020, he launched administrative investigations against four magistrates, including Levrault, with whom he had dealt as a lawyer and whose methods of the methods he had denounced « cowboy ».

In September 2022, the Superior Council of the Magistracy (CSM) had bleached the former investigating judge from Monaco, thus inflicting a reverse on Dupond-Moretti. The CSM had estimated that Levrault had expressed itself « In a non -outrageous way, without disclosing secret information, on a subject of general interest » and therefore had « Not exceeded the limits of his freedom of expression »in a television report at the origin of disciplinary proceedings. Thus, according to the text of the direct quotation, consulted by AFP, Levrault judges that Dupond-Moretti « Polled these seriously defamatory remarks in bad faith, without any factual basis likely to justify them, with an animosity and an intention to harm characterized ».

The trigger of disciplinary proceedings had earned theex-Garde of seals to appear Before the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR), the only one empowered to continue and judge members of the government for acts committed in the exercise of their functions, before being finally released. For his part, the lawyer for Dupond-Moretti, Me Jacqueline Laffont, said that these defamation proceedings reflect « A form of relentlessness »,, « Once again we will answer point by point before justice ».