Posted on 6/25/2003, 12:41:12 AM by Pokey78
President Jacques Chirac is to ask for a change in the French constitution to guarantee him immunity from prosecution while in office.
The changes, prepared by the Justice Ministry under close supervision from the president's office, will create an American-style impeachment system.
Under it the president could be prosecuted or removed from office only for offences in breach of his duties, such as treason. M Chirac is following the example of the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who also just immunised himself against magistrates seeking to prosecute him for extensive alleged financial crimes.
M Chirac has been agitating for the changes since he was accused by magistrates of corruption while mayor of Paris during the 1980s and early '90s.
He was alleged to have taken kickbacks from building contracts to fund his political party, fiddled his grocery bills to pay for holidays and given salaries and fake jobs to party flunkies.
M Chirac refused to answer the charges and persuaded the courts that as president he should be immune from prosecution. But he was not happy about leaving his immunity in the hands of the judiciary.
His proposals, which should be approved by parliament in the autumn, will give his immunity constitutional validity.
Under the changes parliament, at present dominated by M Chirac's supporters, will judge whether a president has committed crimes which merit removal from office.
But I thought he already enjoyed immunity as president of France, and that was the reason he has not been prosecuted yet. (Other people are already being prosecuted for the corruption in the Paris government while Chirac was mayor of Paris.) Even if it's only an informal immunity, it's very odd Chirac would choose to draw attention to his vulnerability.
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