By ruling on appeal and reducing to forty-five months the duration of the ineligibility sentence pronounced against Marine Le Pen, the Paris Court of Appeal silenced the heated controversies that had aroused the judgment rendered by the Paris criminal court having sentenced her to a five-year ineligibility sentence with provisional execution.
The court considered that the facts of embezzlement of public funds were established, that they were serious with regard to the requirement of probity of elected officials, but that Marine Le Pen had not derived any personal enrichment from them. The court therefore assessed the proportionate nature of the impact that an ineligibility measure was likely to have on the exercise of a current elected mandate and the preservation of the voter’s freedom.
Equality before the law
These two court decisions were made “in the name of the French people”. This means that, in its domain, justice expresses sovereignty, not by representation like the President of the Republic and parliamentarians, but by delegation of the Constitution. These decisions remind us that justice is rendered by independent and impartial judges at the end of a long and complex process, made up of decisions from different jurisdictions and which draw the conclusions from the arguments developed by the parties during the debates which took place within the framework of the fair trial, and therefore in compliance with the rights of the defense.
In this case, the judges did not have to decide any political debate but the sole question of whether Marine Le Pen, her co-defendants and the RN had embezzled public funds. There is no violation of the separation of powers. The judges apply the law passed by Parliament and, in the event of a conviction, pronounce a fair sentence, adapted and proportionate to the seriousness of the facts which undermined the confidence of citizens in political parties, and to the personal situation of the persons prosecuted.
This second sentencing decision, against which Marine Le Pen has announced an appeal, is therefore not final, and Marine Le Pen still benefits from the presumption of innocence. However, it recalls the importance of the principle of equality before the law as it results from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen according to which the rule “must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes”.
Be exemplary
It then makes it possible to underline the necessary dignity of the political function in a representative democracy where citizens elect their representatives by universal suffrage and where it is not the citizens who govern but their elected representatives. It is therefore in the interest of citizens that those who will govern are honest and virtuous people.
The meaning of public functions is ordered by the common good and the general interest, the political dimension giving them a certain transcendence over other functions. When you occupy these positions, you do not own them, you only have the use of them, that is to say you must be accountable for the use you have made of them and you must be exemplary. This office of political leader goes beyond us, that is dignity, and this dignity elevates and expresses the transcendence of the function. This is particularly true for political office, because it is the State and the Republic that we serve.
Montesquieu said that “forgetting virtue leads to the progressive corruption of government and the disappearance of political freedom.”
Probity requirement
This is why our society has an increasingly strong demand for probity and transparency in a movement which has never wavered and which has become increasingly tougher in order to put an end to mandates and to make ineligible political leaders who have committed crimes of violation of probity. Each law passed has thus regularly tightened this system until the Sapin 2 law, which established automatic ineligibility for those who have committed in particular the offense of embezzlement of public funds.
In its explanatory memorandum, the bill indicated that it was about promoting an exemplary Republic as well as the renovation of public life. He recalled the fundamental principles of dignity, probity and impartiality which must guide the action of members of the government as well as people designated by universal suffrage to exercise a mandate. It is therefore in order to preserve the dignity of political office and restore confidence that the law has provided for ineligibility with regard to those who have not shown themselves worthy and have failed in matters of integrity.
The judge, by ensuring respect for the principle of equality before the law, and by applying the law, constitutes, in respect of the separation of powers and the rule of law, an actor and a guarantor of the democratic vitality of our country, “in the name of the French people”.
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