2023-12-22 14:02:00
Christophe Clersy, Ecolo MP and lead candidate in the region for the Greens in the Charleroi-Thuin constituency, is not yet done with his legal troubles. The Courcelles municipal council decided, at a meeting on December 18, to pursue its former majority partner – he was an alderman – in civil court. The first complaint, criminal, was extinguished after a penal settlement between the Charleroi public prosecutor’s office and the regional deputy.
Concretely, this means that the municipality of Courcelles is requesting “reparation” for the actions of Christophe Clersy, after having failed to have him convicted by the court for “prohibited access to a computer system” (article 550bis). Most often, in a “reparation” it is about money.
As a reminder: in May 2019, the environmentalist alderman Christophe Clersy, in Courcelles, took a step aside from the municipal college to concentrate on his seat as Walloon deputy. But in June 2020, during a television program, he returned to the question of subsidies that the commune of Courcelles plans to give to a presumed far-right association. In Courcelles, we wonder how the former alderman knows and we check the computer system: he connected several times to the internal platform to consult documents to which he was no longer supposed to have access. A complaint was immediately filed by the municipality, in September 2020. Three years later, Christophe Clersy signed a criminal settlement of €300 with the prosecution, which means the end of the proceedings.
It is specified that a penal transaction “does not imply a confession or an official recognition of guilt”. But the deputy Christophe Clersy pointed it out himself: “I made a mistake.” The municipality, in a press release, does not share this opinion: “It is not a question of a mistake, but rather of an illegal act which caused real damage to the victim, that is to say the Commune.” And while the deputy hoped that the file would be closed, here he is being prosecuted in civil court. That is to say say that if the criminal action has ended and the deputy is not considered guilty of anything, on a civil level, there is fault and this can lead to compensation.
“No one is fooled given the timing, and I find it a bit easy with taxpayer money,” Christophe Clersy simply declared when contacted, without making additional comments.
Update 5 p.m.: addition of Christophe Clersy’s comment.
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