CHIRAC COULD DODGE TRIAL IF MADE SENATOR-FOR-LIFE
Supporters of French President Jacques Chirac are pushing for a constitutional change that would make him a senator-for-life after he leaves office and thus shield him from the threat of future legal proceedings, newspapers reported Friday.The new proposal, which would require a change to the country's 1958 constitution, is being promoted by senator Patrice Gelard - a leading Chirac supporter - and will be formally tabled in the Senate next Tuesday, Le Monde said.
The proposed measure would mean that all former presidents become automatic members of the upper house of parliament - instead of joining the constitutional council, France's highest judicial authority, which they do under the existing arrangement.
Chirac, 72, cannot be prosecuted as long as he remains president [Jack had the self-servicing foresight to introduce laws protecting serving heads of state from prosecution.], but when he steps down he risks being placed under judicial investigation in connection with a series of party-finance scams during his 18-year tenure as mayor of Paris.
Attempts by investigating magistrates to question Chirac on the affair foundered over his presidential immunity. But last year his close ally former prime minister Alain Juppe was given a 14-month suspended jail term along with a one-year ban on holding elected office for his role in raising the money.
M. Juppé was one of 27 people on trial for corruption during Jack's mayoral tenure, all but six of whom were convicted. His original sentence was a suspended 18-month prison sentence, which automatically barred him from office for 10 years. Prior to his conviction, M. Juppé, the wounded drama queen, threatened that if barred from public office, he would end his political career. Would a clutch of nobody magistrates dare deny France the services of Alain Juppé?
Astonished by his conviction on January 30, 2K4 barring him from public office, M. Juppé had this to say on February 3:
"I joined politics because I wanted to serve my country, to serve ideas, to serve my fellow citizens. And that is what I try to do... Does all that deserve to be wiped out at the stroke of as pen, in general disgrace? I do not think I deserve it. I think it is too much," he said.Well, apparently too much to make good his original threat. So M. Juppé delayed his leaving politics, which he now made contingent on the conviction being upheld on appeal.
He admitted that he was guilty of the charges against him - that he organised the payment of party officials out of Paris municipal funds during the time when Chirac was mayor of Paris - and said that if the appeal court reconvicted him he would leave politics for good.
M. Juppé, prior to his conviction, admitted no guilt and fought the charges.
At his trial in January Mr Juppé angered the judges by insisting, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary and confessions, that he had not been aware of the scam in which Paris town hall and private companies paid the salaries of up to 175 activists from the RPR party, the predecessor of the UMP.
On December 1, 2k4, an appeals court upheld M. Juppé's conviction but reduced his sentence. However, the failed appeal forced M. Juppé to relinquish his last elected post, mayor of Bordeaux.
M. Juppé's defense of criminal privilege in the service of the French people is not original with him or UMP. A decade ago Socialist Henri Emmanuelli, who serves today in l'Assemblée nationale, was convicted, like M. Juppé, of serving the French people by paradoxically robbing them blind.
