“I didn't know that I was going to spend one of the shortest and happiest periods of my professional life there. I loved this ministry and I regret leaving it,” the now former Minister of Justice first confided on Tuesday morning in front of the Grand Chancellery.
Recalling how much he “liked to defend the judicial institution”, in search of the “lost and yet indispensable confidence” of the French, Didier Migaud from Isère claimed to have fought “ardorously” for the ministry to regain “a a large part of the budgetary resources which had been taken away this summer, before the motion of censure swept away everything in its path.
“Keep your opinions to yourself”
Under the watchful eye of Gérald Darmanin, his successor, the former president of the Grenoble Metropolis then insisted on “the importance of the issue of violence against women” in our society, confiding the “chilling stories” who were made to them for “the relentlessness to which their bodies are subjected in the context of feminicides”. “I am thinking of the debate to which I myself was able to contribute by relaunching the question of the necessary taking into account of consent, even if this question is sensitive, difficult, even dangerous legally speaking”, specified the former deputy of the 'Isère. “But times have changed and the 21st century must no longer be one of domination by men over women.”
Addressing Gérald Darmanin, Didier Migaud recalled that “being Keeper of the Seals, and you will quickly realize this for yourself, Mr. Minister of State […] it also means not being able to express oneself publicly in a large number of cases, unlike other members of the government who, further removed from justice, may feel more authorized to do so.” “And therefore keep your opinions, your reactions, your emotions to yourself because neutrality, impartiality, the independence of justice must take precedence above all,” he said again.
“Minister of Victims”
Then the former first president of the Court of Auditors hit the nail on the head: “To be Keeper of the Seals is finally to be guarantor of the rule of law, protector of public liberties, minister of victims too, it is to decide to the penal policy of the Nation without the slightest intervention in individual cases. Noble and fundamental tasks when you believe, like you and me, in the values of the Republic and the virtues of democracy.”
“Being a Keeper of the Seals ultimately means occupying one of the most beautiful and demanding positions there is. One of those that I will look back on with emotion and nostalgia,” he concluded. “I do not leave this position without a pang in my heart, but I wish you every success at the head of this ministry. I have no doubt that you will succeed and that you will amplify what we have initiated in your own way. […] to repair the judicial institution with the benevolence it needs.”
