The emotion was strong and palpable at the Paris courthouse this Friday, May 10, upon the announcement of the death of judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke, who for more than 15 years had investigated numerous resounding political and financial cases there and had marked the sometimes stormy relations between the political and judicial world.
This emotion was widely shared by all those who saw in this great judge the symbol of the fight against corruption and financial delinquency, poisons of our democracies. But like all great men he was much more than his files, irreducible to a cause, irrecoverable to clans or parties, he was above all a great humanist and therefore a good judge.
In a society in search of a model, he undoubtedly embodies the symbolic figure of a great magistrate not by the services rendered but by his humility in the service of others and above all in the service of a high idea of justice in general and of the judiciary in particular.
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If symbols carry our values and the principles of our institutions, justice does not lack them but it too often lacks men and women to embody them to their full extent.
Renaud Van Ruymbeke embodied them through his rigor and humanism. He will have contributed to defending the idea of fair and equal justice for all. His moral as well as intellectual qualities will have allowed him, despite political adversity or that of his peers, to remain as attentive to others as to his own doubts, far from career games or among himself. He was free and knew the price. Independent, tenacious, courageous, an excellent technician and music lover, he was ambitious solely for the role of the judicial institution and the mission assigned to him as investigating judge.
Fight against tax fraud
Having been aware very early on of the scourge of the “black boxes” of financial globalization and the need to fight against tax fraud, money laundering resulting from crime, havens offshore, in 1996 he signed the Geneva appeal with six other major European anti-corruption judges. He will continue to wage this fight with his friends and the unwavering support of his wife, also a magistrate. In his last interview in November 2022 given to AFP, he declared that for him, justice must be equal for all and above all, without privilege. He was uncompromising on this point.
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From his first position, he experienced a high-profile affair, the Boulin affair, which earned him a certain animosity from the political authorities who repeatedly sought to discredit him until unjustly prosecuting him in 2006 before the Superior Council of the Judiciary in the affair Clearstream. He had been deeply wounded by it even though he had only exercised his prerogatives as a judge. From then on he will loudly carry the functions of investigating judge at a time when everyone dreamed of eliminating this function deemed too effective and dangerous.
In all the political and financial matters that he has had to investigate (Urba, Elf, the Taiwan frigates, Cahuzac, Clearstream, etc.), he will never cease to investigate for and against, without political prejudice and in a manner balanced.
His procedural loyalty, his rigor, his humanity will ensure that he will be respected by the criminal lawyers present to support him when he is unfairly prosecuted disciplinaryly, proceedings which will end up being abandoned six long years later.
Continue the fight
Great servant of the rule of law, may he be an example and a model for many magistrates who will recognize themselves in these values to restore the confidence of citizens in their justice. His pugnacity in adversity and his path strewn with pitfalls and overcoming ordeals can only militate to maintain the function of investigating judge which some always want to restrict or even eliminate. However, it is thanks to his ingenuity that the Caroline Dickinson affair, this murdered young Englishwoman, will be resolved.
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Always elegant, full of humor, discreet, a distinguished pianist, his life will mark all those who had the chance to meet him or know him intimately. He leaves for others, two will books Memoirs of a too independent judge And Offshore: behind the scenes of tax havens which illustrate his struggles and his exemplary journey as an incorruptible judge.
We owe it to him to continue to lead the fight against corruption, economic and financial crime, which is still so powerful and which every day further weakens our fragile democracies and undermines our social cohesion.
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