“We have taken exceptional measures with the prosecutor”: a tense 2025 is being prepared at the Alès court

Simon Lanes : “Les délais baissent, mais à un rythme qui m’apparaît insuffisant.” Midi Libre – ALEXIS BETHUNE

Case delays, reduced staff, but new film festival… Simon Lanes, president of the Alès judicial court, takes stock of the justice system in the Cévennes on the occasion of the formal hearing of the court's return, this Wednesday, January 29. Interview.

In 2024, the number of magistrates at the Alès court was full. But this will not be the case in 2025, with the departure, currently and in the future, of two magistrates from your team. This will be your first challenge to take up ?

We were indeed on target for the period September-December 2024. In Alès, we are supposed to have ten magistrates on the bench. However, the departure of Yan Maitral, who was not replaced on January 1st, and then that of Julia Salery, who is to come on March 1st, put us in a situation of serious understaffing. We will have seven permanent magistrates out of the ten planned. Understaffing that is partially offset by assignments of what are called placed magistrates, somewhat “interim” magistrates who come on temporary missions, which will allow us to have nine out of ten. This limits the damage a little, but the fact remains that they are not permanent magistrates, and this does not have the same impact on the work collective.

So do as much, but with fewer people ?

We can't say it better. I will also assume, if necessary, a reduction in activity within the services. No one is required to do the impossible.

This is a message to the Ministry of Justice ?

This is a message to anyone who wants to hear it.

On the occasion of this formal back-to-school hearing, you intend to launch an appeal to magistrates from all backgrounds to choose Alès as an assignment. But you already have potential answers ?

We have heard about requests to join our jurisdiction. But nothing is official yet. In a certain sense, that reassures me: I tell myself that the jurisdiction has a slight resurgence in attractiveness, which was not necessarily the case several months or several years ago. Afterwards, as for what the management of judicial services will do with these requests, I cannot anticipate. Nevertheless, the prerequisite seems to be fulfilled.

On the balance sheet side, for the civil jurisdiction, the number of pending cases fell, in 2024, by 17.54% (724 compared to 851 in 2023). How do you explain this performance ?

There were a lot of cases completed in significant proportions. I insist on this: you don't have that in many courts! The trend, in civil, is rather towards the lengthening of deadlines. This is largely due to the investment of Julia Salery, who has boosted the processing of disputes.

Which is making the problem related to her departure more serious…

Absolutely, it is a major problem.

On the criminal side, there has been a clear increase in the number of cases handled overall. Just one example: 20.72% more cases judged in the correctional court (1,748 in 2024, 1,448 in 2023). In this area, too, the question of processing times still arises ?

With the public prosecutor, we have a liability which is the hearing delays that we are trying to resolve. We have created 9 criminal hearings in total for 2025, which is significant given our staffing levels. The delays are decreasing, but at a rate that seems insufficient to me. We have taken some exceptional measures with the public prosecutor, in particular aimed at judging urgent judicial information files, which were a little “bogged down” in the backlog of files, and which concern attacks on people: violence, sexual assault, involuntary manslaughter. We will set them for immediate appearance hearings starting next month. It was necessary to prioritize the rapid judgment of these cases. We have already targeted five that will be judged during the first half of the year.

These cases, unlike immediate appearances, are the result of work entrusted to investigating judges. Judging them in the same hearing is not likely to make the work more difficult for the magistrates ?

This is a fairly bold decision. We will alternate between “quick” cases and larger ones. But we can't wait any longer: some cases, which can be processed in a few hours, have been in the backlog for a year or even two. They need to be fixed, even if it's not very comfortable to follow up on different cases.

Also read: The "plurality of perspectives" by Simon Lanes is posed on the judicial court of Alès

It’s a bold strategy, especially when some immediate appearances can also last several hours!

It’s bold, yes! I don’t rule out late hearings. It’s a risk that is taken, but assumed. The priority is for the victims, so that they no longer wait indefinitely.

In 2025, you want to open the doors of the court a little more to the general public, with the creation of a new film festival dedicated to legal films. What should we expect? ?

This would be a good way to make ourselves known, the judicial institution being rather “isolationist”, while everyone talks about subjects related to justice. When I arrived here, I saw that there is a dynamic cultural scene, and that it was a shame not to benefit from this dynamic to make the jurisdiction more part of the life of the city. Hence the creation of this judicial film festival, aimed at school audiences but not only. The idea is to open it up to as many people as possible through cinema. The format will be simple: it will be over 3 days, from September 23 to 26.

We will try to show three films per day with, after each screening, a time for discussion between the public and a professional from the judicial world: lawyers, magistrates, clerks, etc. Since the Cratère is under construction, we plan to meet in the Capitole hall. We are also looking at whether we can propose something in Vigan, in order to propose screenings in the most remote municipalities of the jurisdiction.

The formal hearing for the start of the 2025 school year, chaired by Simon Lanes, will take place in the Alès court at 11 a.m. this Wednesday, January 29. It will be preceded by that of the industrial tribunal at 10 a.m. I subscribe to read the rest