Culture Minister Rachida Dati is expected to learn her fate on Tuesday. The Paris Court of Appeal will rule on her request to end the prosecution that has been targeting her since 2021 in the Carlos Ghosn affair, over contracts signed with a subsidiary of Renault-Nissan, when the latter was its CEO.
“We are waiting with serenity for the prescription to be established. It is a judicial evidence,” declared Mr.e Olivier Baratelli and Me Olivier Pardo, two of the minister’s lawyers. “Everyone knew about Rachida Dati’s intervention as Renault-Nissan’s lawyer in 2009 and 2010. Everything is perfectly clear,” they assured.
900,000 euros collected and lobbying
The former Minister of Justice and ex-mayor of the 7the arrondissement of Paris has been under investigation since July 2021 for corruption and passive influence peddling by a person holding a public elective mandate. She is suspected of having received 900,000 euros from RNBV, a subsidiary of the Renault-Nissan alliance, without compensation for real work, between 2010 and 2012, while she was a lawyer and Member of the European Parliament (2009-2019).
The investigations also sought to determine whether this fee agreement could have been used to mask lobbying activity in the European Parliament, which is prohibited for all elected officials. In this case, Carlos Ghosn, who lives in Lebanon, has been the subject of an international arrest warrant since April 2023.
“New, fundamental elements”
The former automobile magnate and the Minister of Culture deny any irregularity. Rachida Dati’s defense had already raised the statute of limitations of the facts in 2021 before the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, in vain. Her lawyers have seized it again after the investigating judges in charge of this case, opened in 2019, refused to examine a new request to establish the statute of limitations which was based, according to them, on “new, fundamental elements” submitted to the procedure. The investigating magistrates had rejected this request on the grounds that the deadline, six months from the indictment in matters of limitation, had expired.
A trial before the criminal court?
Before deciding on the admissibility of this new application, the investigating chamber must first decide whether or not to refer to the Constitutional Council a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) on this limitation period. Either the judges refer the QPC, and therefore postpone their decision on the limitation period, or they dismiss it and consider the admissibility of the minister’s request. If the limitation period is still dismissed, Rachida Dati risks a trial before the criminal court.
Investigations into this case have been completed since September 2023 and the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) should issue its final indictment soon. Then the investigating judges will order a trial or not. But if the Minister of Culture wins her case, the proceedings against her will be dropped.
