Lyhanna affair: police commissioners and judges united against Darmanin, demanding structural reform
The SCPN and USM issued an open letter to Darmanin denouncing the search for scapegoats following the murder of an 11-year-old schoolgirl in the Gers.
Unprecedented open letter: police and justice make common cause against Darmanin
According to Google News LU FR, the union of police commissioners (SCPN) and the union of magistrates (USM) — both majority unions in their respective bodies — addressed an open letter jointly to Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin on Thursday, calling on him to "cease the permanent quest for scapegoats" in the context of the Lyhanna affair.
The move is described as unprecedented by both organisations. While they have supported each other in the past — notably during the national police reform — no such joint action had ever been undertaken.
A reaction to a ministerial note deemed damning
The letter followed a twelve-page note sent at the end of July by Darmanin to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez. This document, drawn up on the basis of information collected from state prosecutors' offices, painted a severe picture of failings in the handling of sexual violence against minors, specifically naming certain towns and departments.
The Lyhanna affair, named after an 11-year-old schoolgirl found dead in June in the Gers, had triggered a wave of national outrage. The suspect, Jérôme Barella, had been the subject of several complaints for sexual violence against minors without having been pursued. The ministerial note identified a series of malfunctions "of a structural nature": lack of training for investigators, insufficient resources and tools, and the existence of a "phantom stock" of proceedings — files not registered by the justice system due to failure to transmit them between services.
"A demagogic and sterile stance"
Frédéric Lauze, secretary general of the SCPN, and Ludovic Priat, president of the USM, express in their letter a "deep concern" and "profound indignation". They argue that "offering up public servants who work daily in service of the Nation under deeply degraded professional conditions constitutes a demagogic and sterile stance".
The two union leaders also criticise Darmanin for having prioritised "the search for individual responsibilities rather than a clear-eyed analysis of underlying causes". According to them, his services had "above all feigned discovering a reality known for a long time by all those involved in the judicial system, investigators, senior police and national gendarmerie officers, and judges in both the prosecutor's office and the bench".
Decades of political choices at issue
For the SCPN and USM, the current crisis "results from accumulated political choices over decades". They describe a "judicial chain in distress, materially and humanly paralysed and under-resourced to absorb flows that have become XXL in scale".
Both organisations also point to the "growing complexity of criminal procedure" as well as an "accumulation of reforms, formalities and sometimes contradictory injunctions". Faced with this assessment, they call for "a genuine shock of efficiency and simplification" rather than another designation of individual responsibilities.
Laurent Nuñez contests figures put forward
In this tense context, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has for his part contested some of the figures put forward by Darmanin in his note, according to information reported separately by several French media outlets. The controversy underscores persistent tensions between the two ministries over the management of the sexual violence against minors issue, which has been made a priority by the Justice Minister since the Gers tragedy.
Source: Google News LU FR