The collusion of politics and the judiciary
A complaint with the establishment of a civil party targeting suspicious real estate transactions attributed by the press to Nicolas Sarkozy was filed by an individual in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) but was declared inadmissible, we learned from the public prosecutor’s office in this locality on Thursday. This complaint filed by Marc Salomone was administratively registered on March 26, said a spokesperson. The senior investigating judge, Alain Philibeaux, wrote to the complainant to explain that he would not take any further action, because, according to him, he did not have any legal standing to act (Reuters, 04/05/2007).
The prosecution is a champion in the sport of dismissing cases without further action, to unclog the courts or to protect the powerful.
Furthermore, the state apparatus, not without a certain arrogant ingenuity, claims a monopoly on representing the general interest.
By formulating conditions for access to its services, via the procedural notions of “quality, capacity and interest to act”. By insisting on the fact that to act before the courts the damage suffered must be “direct” By reducing the interest of an association in acting to the sum of the individual interests of its members, by requiring the need for “administrative approvals” , by stating that we cannot replace the public prosecutor when the general interest is at stake… An association, for example, cannot therefore defend a collective interest distinct from the particular interest of its members. If exceptions have been granted over time by the legal system, it is mainly for the benefit of activist NGOs whose vocation is the defense of the orthodox political order…
A democratic reform would consist of considerably broadening and simplifying the possibility of associations, NGOs and even individuals or informal groups to act for the general interest. The State is, once again, only one of the forces contributing to the organization of society. We must demand that he adopt a logic of service, and that he collaborate with other forces rather than seeking to dominate them.
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