It has therefore been ten months since the European Court of Human Rights closed Jean-Charles Luperto’s case. Ten months, therefore, that the sentence pronounced by the Liège Court of Appeal in 2020 is effective, since all appeals have been exhausted.
What should have happened ten months ago and what consequences should this decision of the European Court have? These are the questions that arise today.
When he turned to the European Court of Human Rights, Jean-Charles Luperto had let it be known in a press release that he had no “no intention of resigning from the mandates entrusted to him by the voters because it would thus be to admit that he is the author of acts which he did not commit”. He is therefore still mayor of Sambreville and Walloon deputy. On the side of Sambreville, the Ecolo group had already requested, when the appeal was rejected by the Court of Cassation, that Jean-Charles Luperto take a step aside. In Sambreville, a municipal council is being held this Thursday, October 20 in the evening.
With regard to the mandate of mayor, nothing indicates in the code of local democracy that a mayor convicted in court must be removed from office. Article L1123-6 of this code provides “that the Government may, for notorious misconduct or serious negligence, suspend or dismiss the mayor, who will be heard beforehand”. However, the article continues, “the suspension may not exceed three months”. It should be noted, however, that in the case of Jean-Charles Luperto, it is not a question of faults committed in the exercise of political functions, but of a private matter. The lawyers that our editorial staff consulted do not exclude that the Walloon government has the right to sanction. On the side of the Walloon government and the Minister Collignon, in charge of local authorities, we are not taking a position for the moment and we are taking the time to analyze the situation from its legal angles.
It is also on the side of Jean-Charles Luperto’s party, the PS, that eyes are also turning. In the past, PS elected officials who have been convicted or have had problems with the law have been expelled from the party. This was, for example, the case of Alderman Carolo Claude Despiegeleer in 2016 after his conviction in the Carolorégienne case.
But this was a conviction linked to acts committed in the exercise of political functions. Same thing for the exclusion of Stéphane Moreau in 2017 after the Publifin affair. In another context related to alleged acts of corruption, Alain Mathot resigned from the PS this year. In short, there too, it is about exclusions or resignations in connection with cases concerning the political activity of the person. It remains to be seen how the party positions itself in relation to “private” matters.
Therefore, what do we think of the PS of the final conviction of Jean-Charles Luperto? In May 2021, the president of the PS, Paul Magnette, questioned after the rejection of the appeal in cassation by Jean-Charles Luperto had been benevolent. “I note that no one asked for his resignation, neither in Sambreville where the citizens re-elected him after the trial, nor in the (Walloon) parliament, nor anywhere”he replied.
Today, in the PS, most people contacted by RTBF did not react. At the end of the afternoon, sources close to the Boulevard de l’Empereur briefly indicated that the decision of the European Court of Human Rights was not a surprise and that it did not constitute a something new in relation to what was decided last year.