A Lyon magistrate in court for contempt of police
The 59-year-old magistrate would have made “contemptuous” remarks towards the agents in 2019.
A 59-year-old magistrate from Lyon, now suspended from his duties, appeared this Thursday before the correctional court of Chambéry (Savoie) for “contempt” against police officers in Lyon in 2019.
The facts date back to April 3 when, on his return from a training course he had given in Aix-en-Provence, the defendant, then an investigating judge in Lyon, had his car taken away by the pound of this city, which was parked in front of the entrance to a private garage.
At the pound, he had asked to recover his vehicle in which qualified instruction documents and the situation had worsened with municipal police officers on the spot. Three of them today accuse the person concerned of outrage, others of “contemptuous” remarks even if “not given illegal”.
To one of them, on the day of the events, the magistrate had launched: “you are a badly integrated policeman”.
“It feels like Africa or Asia”
“Badly integrated into the legal system in which you extend”, wanted to specify at the hearing of the magistrate, explaining that he was then preparing “one of the most important judicial operations of the year on the national”.
“We are the fifth world power and it feels like Africa or Asia,” he said again. At the helm, he explained Thursday that “it was a reference to the legal framework which was not applied that evening”.
“I would have been called Pierre Dupond … But I am also from the second generation of immigrants”, also replied the auxiliary of justice to the accusations of racism from the police.
“I was annoyed, certainly. Contemptuous, that’s how they felt,” he added on Thursday, saying he was “sorry” about that.
“Resentment is not an offence”
Magistrate hitherto well noted, the defendant has since this incident been demoted, transferred and then suspended from his duties – “without any legal basis” according to him – by the judicial authorities.
“The independence of the magistrate is not to be confused with a blank check, every citizen must answer the same before the law”, declared the public prosecutor who demanded a 2,000 euro fine with an entry in the criminal record.
According to her, “the condescension that was felt by the police that evening, we find it today at the bar”.
“The cramped location of the pound required that everything had to be heard by everyone”. Or, “all those present did not hear the same thing”, retorted Me Gabriel Versini-Bullara in defense.
“Resentment is not an offence”, he continued, meant that the police had waited four months before filing a complaint and asking for release.