French jugde Aurélia Devos reflects on the impact of the Court of cassations decision in Le Monde:
[Seized on the case of Abdulhamid C., member of the Damascus secret services, arrested in the Paris region and indicted in February 2019 for "complicity in a crime against humanity", the criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation estimated , on November 24, that the French courts are incompetent on the grounds that Syrian law does not specifically sanction crimes against humanity. This judgment narrowly and restrictively interprets the law of August 9, 2010, which transposes into French law the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the concept of universal jurisdiction. France is one of the few European countries to impose this "double criminality" lock.]
Tribune. At the heart of the Paris court, there are men and women who face the worst that man can do. From war crimes to crimes against humanity, they no longer count the stories of pain, the unbearable images, the silent cries of the survivors. These magistrates and these jurists are not historians, they only want to do their job of rendering justice, they apply French law.
The crimes against humanity, war crimes and offenses pole, created in Paris in January 2012, is thus carrying out numerous investigations - more than 160 in 27 countries to date, compared to around twenty at its inception -, initiates trials, develops an active policy of detecting suspects on French territory.
Why ? Because there are in France, in our companies, in our hospitals or in our surroundings, people suspected of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. The latter adorned with imprescriptibility, without forgetting, forgiveness or redemption. Because France is one of those countries that have made a commitment not to be a golden refuge.
The legislator has thus provided that the French courts are competent to prosecute and try those responsible for acts of torture and enforced disappearances, crimes committed in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, if they are present in France. Even if the acts were committed abroad on foreigners.
The legislator has also provided, by adapting its legislation in 2010 to the statute of the International Criminal Court, known as the Rome statute, that they are competent to prosecute and try criminals against humanity and war criminals who are habitual residents in France. . Under certain conditions, already relaxed in 2019.
One of the conditions is that the accused person must come from a country which has ratified the Rome Statute or from a country in which the acts are also "punished". This is the so-called "double jeopardy" principle.
The criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation ruled on this principle on November 24, in the case of a Syrian national who has been granted asylum in France and is being indicted for crimes against humanity. This decision has since been commented on.
The legislator has thus provided that the French courts are competent to prosecute and try those responsible for acts of torture and enforced disappearances, crimes committed in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, if they are present in France. Even if the acts were committed abroad on foreigners.
The legislator has also provided, by adapting its legislation in 2010 to the statute of the International Criminal Court, known as the Rome statute, that they are competent to prosecute and try criminals against humanity and war criminals who are habitual residents in France. . Under certain conditions, already relaxed in 2019.
Suspected criminals could say they are relieved
One of the conditions is that the accused person must come from a country which has ratified the Rome Statute or from a country in which the acts are also "punished". This is the so-called "double jeopardy" principle.
The criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation ruled on this principle on November 24, in the case of a Syrian national who has been granted asylum in France and is being indicted for crimes against humanity. This decision has since been commented on.
Many suspected criminals residing in France and already targeted by investigations could therefore say they are relieved. Coming from Sri Lanka, Liberia, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Libya, and so many other countries.
The French or those who have committed crimes against the French can be prosecuted. Those who are concerned here are residents. In a sustainable way. Will they not be worried now, or in a residual way, about torture when it can be characterized and not prescribed?
To judge in France is not to "take care of what happens elsewhere". The Paris-based chemical weapons designer in Syria, the Chechen war criminal turned janitor, the Liberian criminal against humanity, the nanny's husband. This is the real thing. Here, not elsewhere. And they are many. Sometimes forgotten, sometimes disturbing.
Could one think that another justice will deal with these cases? This is highly improbable. Some have refugee status in France, others have even obtained French nationality, and still others are said to be persecuted in their country of origin and will not be returned there.
If fears of unbridled, dangerous and ineffective universal jurisdiction exist, in light of the experience of ten years at the head of the specialized judicial pole, it is clear that the danger is more feared than real. Conversely, the pole's specialization and its legitimacy have reinforced the quality of the prosecutions initiated.
The limited means have so far been the most critical obstacle to the French judicial authorities being able to investigate and prosecute, at the heart of a generally poor justice system. Strict interpretation of the law objectively brings the situation back to that which existed before 2010, and makes no sense of adapting the Rome Statute to French law, the application of which would only be very residual.
France, whose place within the European Genocide Network, bringing together prosecutors and investigators, has gone from nothing to a real role of impetus in ten years, will it have to assume, at the dawn of the presidency of the European Union [January 1], the least favorable provisions for the prosecution of these criminals on its territory?
France, at the forefront of a joint structural investigation team around the Caesar file with the Germans, which sees its judicial achievements right now in Koblenz, will have to give up its place. This historic joint investigation team into crimes against humanity, after years of effort, loses this legal basis on 24 November.
What place should still be held in support of the UN investigative mechanisms on Syria, which France so wanted to create? What to show of ourselves? Could France, at the forefront of cooperation with the International Criminal Court, remain a reference?
This leading position that France has acquired in this difficult dispute is real and has truly been embodied in concrete legal acts. But nothing is ever taken for granted.
Speaking is unnatural for the magistrate. For whom, however, it is important that the rule of law be made intelligible to all. In addition, at the threshold of large bends.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen