Present this Friday, November 19 at the swearing in of the promotion “Freedom” of the National School of Registry of Dijon, the Minister of Justice announced the opening of a project to create “a body of category A jurisdictional” to the clerks.

The whole of the promotion of November, as well as members of the families, met this Friday, November 19, 2021 at the Auditorium of Dijon for, as Eric Dupond-Moretti will say, “a day of celebration”: the performance oath of 343 trainee registrars. That is to say nearly 800 people gathered in the great hall of the Dijon Opera.

On his arrival, in the presence of the prefect of Côte-d’Or Fabien Sudry, the Minister of Justice was greeted by many elected officials: the LREM parliamentarians of the Côte-d’Or Fadila Khattabi, Didier Paris and François Patriat, the departmental councilors of the Côte-d’Or Patrick Chapuis (LR), Billy Chrétien (EELV) and Nathalie Koenders (PS) as well as the deputy mayor of Dijon Nadjoua Belhadef (PS). The president of the Dijon bar Stéphane Creusvaux was also present.

ENG provides the basis for the professionalization of staff

“The training of registry staff is a major issue for the modernization of the public service of justice and for the development of professions,” said Véronique Court, director of the National School of Registry, first to speak. “The ENG is there to provide the foundations for the professionalization of staff and, throughout their careers, to support the development of missions, their understanding of changes in professions”.

In 2021, 2,300 registrars and 300 registrars followed an initial training course within the ENG. The clerks of the Liberté promotion have followed eighteen months of training and will follow an internship in the courts to be operational in 2023.

“Freedom is first and foremost the first word of our national motto”

Three promotion representatives then come to the desk to share “the commitment and meaning they give to this profession” and justify the choice of the promotion name.

“Freedom is first and foremost the first word of our national motto, a reflection of our society. Freedom is also the power to act in a society organized according to one’s own will within the limits of rules defined in accordance with democracy. Freedom is also a set of values ​​shared by a set of individuals, individuals who are not alike but who have so much to contribute, who enrich others for a former community. Finally, freedom is the chance for our promotion to be able to meet face-to-face in this auditorium ”, they develop in three voices.

850 additional clerk positions created in five years

“You are now part of a community, so you are one of the essential players,” said the Minister of Justice, addressing the 343 clerk-trainees from the stage of the Dijon Opera. “By becoming clerks, you represent an institution, the only one that bears the name of a virtue, justice”.

“We need clerks for the validity of the procedure, to authenticate the procedure, for the truth of the procedure. The truth must be at the rendezvous of all the decisions that are taken in the great house of justice, ”insists the Keeper of the Seals.

Quickly, Eric Dupond-Moretti followed up with the government’s record: 30% increase in the budget of the Ministry of Justice over the entire five-year term. “An unprecedented budgetary effort”.

During the five-year term, 850 additional posts of clerks were created as well as 650 additional posts of magistrate (to reach 9,090 magistrates, a “historic” level according to the Minister of Justice) and 1,500 additional posts of penitentiary integration and probation advisers. To this are added the 2,100 staff placed in the courts.

Concerning more specifically the clerks, a budget of 10 million euros will help to revalue the remuneration in 2021 and 2022.

Creation in 2022 of “a third grade in the body of clerks”

As the functions of court clerks are “constantly evolving”, the direction of legal services, trade unions and court clerks are working to define “new missions” and “professional and statutory developments”.

The Seals tab keeper has also exchanged this day with two representatives of the UNSA Judicial Services: Hervé B, national secretary general, and Raphaèle Tirel, regional secretary in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.

“Improving justice is a constant struggle,” insists Éric Dupond-Moretti. Based on the results of the statutory reform of 2015, the ministry plans to “build more solid and better organized judicial and administrative teams in a more internal and more operational system”.

“I consider that the registry should be given a perspective of professional development towards a category A jurisdictional body”, then declared the member of the. First stage of this project: the creation “from 2022” of a third grade in the body of clerks. “I have a real ambition for the body of clerks,” he sums up.

As part of the Estates General of Justice, the Minister of Justice invites the people gathered today to express themselves “as citizens” on the platform Let’s talk about justice which collects “innovative ideas” to “imagine the registry and justice of tomorrow”.

The clerks, guarantors of the procedure

The president of the Dijon judicial tribunal, Bruno Laplane, then opens the solemn hearing for the taking of the oath. This is the very first time that the trainee clerks have worn the dress during an official hearing.

The requisitions are brought by the prosecutor of the Republic of Dijon, Olivier Caracotch: “technicians and guarantors of the procedure, watches for its regularity but also for the proper functioning of justice, you are at the heart of this modern justice which must to be faster, more accessible, more supportive and better understand, while always remaining faithful to its values ​​and requirements ”.

In alphabetical order, each clerk-trainee then raises his right hand and pronounces the words “I swear it” to take the oath, the microphone circulating in the rows of the room.

At the end of the ceremony, many clerk-trainees and a few clerk-trainees surrounding Éric Dupond-Moretti to multiply the selfies. The Keeper of the Seals is clearly enjoying a moment of conviviality after a week marked by the work carried out around the adoption of the law for confidence in the judicial institution.

Jean-Christophe Tardivon