Global Policy Forum

By Elaine Ganley

The judge investigating a corruption scandal that appeared to be closing in on President Jacques Chirac has dropped his pursuit of the chief of state, news reports and judicial sources said Thursday. Judge Eric Halphen filed his decision Wednesday to stop pursuing the president, saying it falls outside his jurisdiction, judicial sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The sources were confirming a report that first appeared in Thursday's edition of the regional newspaper l'Est Republicain.

Halphen's decision came just a month after he had summoned the conservative president to appear as a witness in the case, which involves a kickback scheme centering on Paris City Hall when Chirac served as mayor of the French capital from 1977 to 1995. Chirac refused to appear before the judge, with his office saying the summons violated the constitutional separation of powers.

According to the French Constitution, a president is protected from being brought before judicial bodies while he is in office. But it says nothing about his answering a summons as a witness, with no charges weighing on him. Only the High Court of Justice, a special body that judges officials for crimes committed while in office, is in a position to go forward with the investigation, Halphen said, according to Le Monde newspaper.

A Socialist lawmaker, Arnaud de Montebourg, has pressed for the special court to take up the case, but there is no indication it will do so. Halphen's summons in March for Chirac to testify as a witness drew a rash of criticism from Chirac's conservative allies and injected a dose of acrimony into already tense relations between the conservative president and his Socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin. The two men are seen as likely contenders in next year's presidential election. Halphen cited both the Constitution and the Jan. 22, 1999, decision of the Constitutional Council in his decision to keep Chirac out of the case, which he has been investigating since 1994.

The case centers on allegations that bribes were extracted from building contractors, in part to help finance Chirac's conservative Rally for the Republic party and other political parties. Some 50 people have been placed under formal investigation — a step just short of being charged. ``There now exist indications making it probable that Jacques Chirac could have participated, as player or accomplice, in the commission of infractions,'' Le Monde quoted the judge as saying in his decision. Halphen began investigating Chirac in earnest after he was directly implicated in a videotaped account from a key figure in the case, Jean-Claude Mery, released after Mery's death. Mery's account was corroborated earlier this month by Francois Ciolina, former deputy director of the public housing office that was part of the alleged scheme. Ciolina is among those under investigation.