Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 100
August-September 2007
Moullet v. France (dec.) - 27521/04
Decision 13.9.2007 [Section III]
Article 6
Criminal proceedings
Article 6-2
Presumption of innocence
Finding by Conseil d’Etat of a breach of disciplinary rules on the basis of the factual findings of a criminal court when dismissing charges on the ground that a prosecution was statute barred: inadmissible
The applicant was prosecuted for bribery, fraud, and complicity in fraud adversely affecting the interests of the municipal authority which employed him as a civil servant. By way of penalty, two successive orders were made suspending him from his duties on account of the criminal proceedings instituted against him. The proceedings were discontinued by the indictment division of the court of appeal on the ground that the facts of which the applicant stood accused were covered by the three-year limitation period for criminal offences. The applicant applied to be reinstated in his post. When he received no reply from the mayor he applied to the administrative court to have the implicit refusal of his request overturned. The administrative court rejected his application. He lodged an appeal on points of law with the Conseil d’Etat, which quashed the impugned judgment on the ground that the applicant’s suspension should be lifted following discontinuation of the proceedings. The mayor ordered the applicant’s retirement on disciplinary grounds but the order was overturned by the administrative court. The mayor again ordered the applicant’s automatic retirement, on the basis of the findings of the indictment division of the court of appeal. The applicant applied to the administrative court, which ordered that the decision be overturned. In a separate judgment, the administrative court overturned the implicit refusals by the mayor to reinstate the applicant and restore his full entitlements. The applicant and the municipality appealed against both judgments. The administrative court of appeal joined the appeals. It reduced the amount the municipal authority had been ordered to pay in compensation for pecuniary damage and upheld the amount awarded for non‑pecuniary damage. Both parties appealed on points of law. The Conseil d’Etat quashed the judgment of the administrative court of appeal, in the light, in particular, of the facts established by the investigating judge in the criminal proceedings.
Inadmissible: With regard to the existence of criminal charges, the Court noted that the applicant had not been formally identified as the perpetrator of a criminal offence by the highest administrative court. The Conseil d’Etat had confined itself to noting the substantive facts – admittedly contested by the applicant – as they emerged from the documents in the case file submitted to the administrative court of first instance, which had been debated freely and in adversarial proceedings, and had refrained from drawing any conclusions as to their classification in criminal law. Hence, in so far as the administrative courts were not bound by a decision to discontinue the proceedings given by an investigating judge, it had been for the administrative court to make a sovereign assessment of the facts of which the applicant had been accused and whether the penalty imposed had been appropriate, in the light of the law on the civil service. Consequently, the Conseil d’Etat had confined itself to assessing the implications of the facts of which the applicant was accused for the duty of probity incumbent on all local authority employees. The domestic authorities had maintained their decision strictly within the administrative sphere. As to the possible existence of a link between the criminal proceedings and the impugned administrative proceedings, the Court observed that the outcome of the former had not been decisive for the latter since, despite the fact that the criminal proceedings had been discontinued, it had still been legally possible to take action against the applicant before the relevant disciplinary bodies. Irrespective of the decision given following the criminal proceedings, the administrative proceedings in question, which were entirely autonomous in terms of the conditions in which they were conducted and the procedural rules governing them, were not therefore a direct corollary to the criminal proceedings. In that respect the present case differed from other cases in which the Court had held that the proceedings at issue were directly linked to a set of criminal proceedings and that Article 6 § 2 applied. In conclusion, the Court considered that Article 6 § 2 was not applicable in the present case: inapplicable.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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