France's investigating judges are a powerful lot: They can order phone taps and home searches, interrogate terrorists and bring down politicians. Now, one has even ordered former French President Jacques Chirac to stand trial.
Those sweeping powers may soon end.
President Nicolas Sarkozy's government is drawing up a reform plan to do away with investigating judges, a two-century-old Napoleonic legacy, and give more power to prosecutors. Advocates say the plan will prevent miscarriages of justice by powerful, independent magistrates, while critics see it as self-defense by leaders who want to avoid prosecution.
"This is an attempt to get control of the justice system," Marc Trevidic, who heads the French Association of Investigating Magistrates, told The Associated Press. His caseload includes probes on terrorist attacks and the Rwandan genocide.
Another investigating judge, Xaviere Simeoni, probed corruption allegations swirling around Chirac's 1977-1995 tenure as Paris mayor for a decade before making a bold move last week. Her order to send Chirac to trial in the case was testimony to the powers of the profession, one of several recent cases of strong action.
It was "as if judges wanted to remind the decision-makers, but also the public, of their role, and the counterweight they represent" to France's leaders, Le Monde newspaper opined.
Magistrates' unions said the Chirac case — which was revived when he lost presidential immunity on leaving office in 2007 — never could have gone so far without the current system's far-reaching independence for investigating judges. Chirac denies any wrongdoing.
Investigative judges handle only a small percent of the most serious cases — including terrorism or major-league corruption — leading probes, questioning suspects and deciding who will be charged and tried.
They have probed massive cases involving arms trafficking to Angola and corruption at former oil giant Elf Aquitaine, both of which led to convictions for high-profile politicians and personalities. A March telephone poll of 1,002 people by the CSA agency suggested that 71 percent of French people trust investigating magistrates.
But a major miscarriage of justice far from politics led France to reevaluate its legal system. A case involving an inexperienced investigating judge in northern France led to a fiasco in which more than a dozen people spent time in prison on false charges of pedophilia. They were cleared in 2004-2005.
More recently, a court has been weighing whether former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin tried to mislead an investigative judge as part of an alleged smear campaign against Chirac's successor, Sarkozy. Villepin denies the charges and says Sarkozy is putting pressure on the justice system in the case.
A commission that handed its reform proposal to the government recently suggested that investigations be led by prosecutors instead of judges. Critics say that is problematic because prosecutors report to the Justice Ministry — and their careers depend on the government — while investigating judges don't and have great freedom.
Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, in an interview with Le Monde this week, dismissed the concern that prosecutors would not be impartial, calling that "groundless."
The reform would bring the French system closer in line with that of Britain and the United States. Under the proposal, investigating judges would be given a new title and redefined powers: They would decide which suspects would be jailed pending investigation and could order wiretaps and searches, but they would not lead investigations.
Alliot-Marie insisted the judges would still maintain a strong role, with the ability to order prosecutors to continue inquiries they had sought to drop.
"There would therefore be no risk of a case being buried, especially if it's an affair that the media have seized on," she said.
The reform bill is expected to go before parliament next year.
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