Maître Julié spoke to France 24 about the issues surrounding Nicolas Sarkozy’s trial for suspicions that Kadhafi’s Libya financed his 2007 presidential campaign.
The case raises complex issues, due to the close interaction between political power and the judiciary.
In particular, there are questions about international cooperation with Libya and the reliability of statements made by former Libyan politicians.
For several years now, the French judiciary has shown a willingness to take on the political arena. Jacques Chirac was the first French president to be convicted after his term of office, for acts committed before his mandate, in the case of the fictitious jobs at Paris City Hall. Since then, many other political figures have been prosecuted and convicted, including Nicolas Sarkozy last December in the Bismuth case.
While this development has been widely criticised by the political class, who have denounced it as a ‘witch-hunt’, it does ensure the effectiveness of the rule of law. It guarantees the constitutional principles of separation of powers and independence of the judiciary.