Ex-Minister Dumas Wins Human Rights Fight With French State Over His Book
Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas won a human rights case over comments in his book about an investigation of corruption allegations at Elf Aquitaine SA.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, today ruled Dumas’s rights to freedom of expression had been violated by a fine imposed by French judges. France was ordered to pay Dumas 8,000 euros ($10,200).
Dumas, who will turn 88 next month, complained to the human rights court after a French ruling that he had defamed a public prosecutor in his book “L’Epreuve, Les Preuves,” about a scandal connected with the oil company. Dumas was acquitted of all charges in a corruption case in January 2003.
“Roland Dumas had merely exercised his freedom, as a former defendant in criminal proceedings, to recount the story of his own trial,” the court ruled today. “He had also been careful to put his comments in context and to explain them.”
Guillaume Didier, a spokesman at the French Justice Ministry, declined to comment when reached by telephone.
“I am very happy to hear this,” Dumas said in a telephone interview after being informed about the decision. “This is a very satisfactory end to a fight that’s been going on for many, many years.”
The Paris appeals court in 2006 fined Dumas 3,000 euros for defamation of French prosecutor Jean-Pierre Champrenault in his book. France’s highest court, the Cour de Cassation, in 2007 rejected Dumas’s appeal.
‘Dubious’ Analysis
“The method of analysis used to convict Roland Dumas had been dubious,” the court said today, adding that at the time of the book release no criminal charges were pending against Dumas. This should have been considered “in weighing up the respective interests of Roland Dumas and the public prosecutor.”
Dumas, who also once served as the head of France’s supreme court, took his case to the human rights tribunal in August 2007, arguing that his book was published at a time when there was a wider interest in the corruption case.
Dumas was cleared of corruption charges by a Paris appeals court in 2003. The court overturned a jail sentence and fine levied against the former minister two years earlier for defrauding the oil company, now part of Total SA.
Prosecutors had said Dumas accepted gifts and used an apartment bought with money that his ex-mistress, Christine Deviers-Joncour, illegally received from Elf. They said she was given a bogus job at Elf as a reward for helping convince Dumas, a close friend of the late President Francois Mitterrand, to back the appointment of Loik Le Floch-Prigent as head of the oil company.
The case is Dumas v. France, no. 34875/07.
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Bodoni in Brussels at sbodoni@bloomberg.net
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