Confirmation of the cancellation of Anticor’s approval, “a revolting decision which shakes the fight against corruption”, for the association’s lawyer

It is a court decision which amounts to a hammer blow for the anti-corruption association Anticor. Contrary to the conclusions of the public rapporteur, the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal confirmed, Thursday November 16, the annulment, on June 23, with retroactive effect, by the Paris administrative court, of the order of April 2, 2021 renewing Anticor’s approval for three years. This approval, granted by the government, is a precious key which allowed the association, since 2015, to take legal action in cases of alleged corruption and breach of probity, particularly in the event of inaction by the prosecution.

The judgment of the administrative court arises from an appeal filed by a former member excluded from the association in 2020 and another member. The applicants had asked the court to annul the order renewing the said approval of Anticor, calling into question the “selfless and independent character” activities of the association, “appreciated in view of the origin of its resources”.

For the applicants, the very wording of the order of April 2, 2021 posed a legal problem. And this, while the services of the Prime Minister at the time, Jean Castex, wrote that Anticor had “expressed the intention to use an auditor to increase the transparency of its operation, as well as an overhaul of its statutes and internal regulations”.

The leaders of the association, created in 2002 and engaged in 161 legal investigations in France, hoped that the Administrative Court would overturn the judgment of June 23.

“Error of law”

For Anticor, the planets seemed aligned. As revealed The world in October, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne had underlined, in a note of five pages of observations sent on October 3 to the Administrative Court of Appeal, that the association had indeed put in place, before April 2021, a certain number of measures regarding transparency and information on its donors, as well as a “participatory reform of the statutes aimed at improving internal procedures”the creation of an ethics committee and the “recourse to an auditor”.

“The Prime Minister could not (in 2021)without committing an error of law, rely on the fact that the association has undertaken to take corrective measures aimed at complying with its obligations after the date of the approval decision.however, concluded the Administrative Court of Appeal while rejecting Anticor’s request, which requested a modulation over time of the effects of the cancellation of the approval.

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