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French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

bbc.com

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Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#111

Post by lucasRW »

motorest wrote: post #70
lucasRW wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of both, there's no doubt he's more than guilty. But it is also clear that judges (who are notable left-leaning, if not far-left) are much more efficient at prosecuting right-wing figures (Fillon, for 0 reason this time).

> But it is also clear that judges (who are notable left-leaning, if not far-left) are much more efficient at prosecuting right-wing figures (Fillon, for 0 reason this time). This blend of comments strike me as odd. Are you actually complaining that a judicial system is too efficient at catching corruption at high levels? Is this bad? What point are you trying to make, exactly?

As I said, the system is very efficient against Sarkozy who no doubt deserved it.

It is unfortunately way less efficient at jailing or expelling multi-reoffenders, who have entered the country illegally, then broken the law multiple times, been in front of judges 30, 40, sometimes 100 times, been officially notified that they have to leave France ("OQTF"), yet, are still free to roam around until they're 101st crime ends up in the news and everyone asks "how come the non-politicized judges let them out 100 times before?"

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#112

Post by spwa4 »

codeulike wrote: post #107
blitzar wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wine pairings are particularly unimpressive.

I hear the choux pastry is often verging on the dry side of acceptable

Apparently he gets to buy food and cook himself, although no alcohol allowed of course. So the question is really: how's his cooking?

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#113

Post by ajnin »

yard2010 wrote: post #82

[flagged]

All the cells in the solitary confinement wing of the prison where he's incarcerated (La Santé in the middle of Paris) are exactly the same. Due to safety considerations the inmates don't have common utilities like showers or dining area so they have everything in their cells where they remain most of the time. It's not preferential treatment, in fact it could be considered quite cruel to have almost no contact with others.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#114

Post by cccbbbaaa »

timpera wrote: post #93
randomtoast wrote: post #85

By the way, this is not possible in the U.S and in many other countries. When someone is convicted of a crime, they don’t usually start serving a prison sentence until the case is final. If they appeal, the sentence is automatically paused or can be stayed by the court. In practice, this means you don’t go to prison (unless you are already in preventive detention because of flight risk or danger) while your case is s…

It needs to be noted that it's not the norm in France either. The court chose to send him to jail until the appeal because of the "exceptional gravity" of his behavior, which came to a surprise for many. He will most likely ask the courts to review the execution of the sentence until the appeal in the next few days.

> It needs to be noted that it's not the norm in France either.

85% of prison sentences of more than two years also carry “exécution provisoire”: https://www.justice.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/migrations/p... (page 2). Sentences of more than 2 years are not the norm though.

> He will most likely ask the courts to review the execution of the sentence until the appeal in the next few days.

He already did.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#115

Post by darkamaul »

timpera wrote: post #93
randomtoast wrote: post #85

By the way, this is not possible in the U.S and in many other countries. When someone is convicted of a crime, they don’t usually start serving a prison sentence until the case is final. If they appeal, the sentence is automatically paused or can be stayed by the court. In practice, this means you don’t go to prison (unless you are already in preventive detention because of flight risk or danger) while your case is s…

It needs to be noted that it's not the norm in France either. The court chose to send him to jail until the appeal because of the "exceptional gravity" of his behavior, which came to a surprise for many. He will most likely ask the courts to review the execution of the sentence until the appeal in the next few days.

Sarkozy was convicted for "association de malfaiteurs" (criminal conspiracy) related to allowing associates to meet with Libyan officials to discuss covert campaign financing for his 2007 election. Remarkably, while convicted of conspiracy, he was acquitted on the actual underlying charges.

The tribunal acknowledged no direct evidence linked Sarkozy to receiving or handling the funds and that the disputed flows weren't established as having served his campaign. Yet the conviction rested on a "bundle of concordant indices" rather than established facts.

The irony: Sarkozy spent his political career advocating for tougher criminal laws and harsher punishments. The "association de malfaiteurs" law was reintroduced in 1986, and he championed its application throughout his tenure. Now he's imprisoned under the very provision he helped expand—convicted on evidence of intent to prepare a crime rather than proof of an actual crime, exactly the kind of broad prosecutorial power he once argued was necessary.

He got bitten by his own sword.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#116

Post by liendolucas »

Why when a high profile politic is sentenced it goes to a 5 star suite while the rest of mortals are thrown to a hole?

It seems that when you cross a certain invisible threshold "justice" applies just a bit differently. Same in Argentina with corrupt and ex-robber Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#117

Post by thyristan »

_ache_ wrote: post #73
kzrdude wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should say convicted instead of condemned. It's not really wrong, but condemned has many other connotations, which makes it less clear. It's not the first time he's convicted in court overall, but it's the first time for this charge.

Please, can you explains the difference between "convicted" and "condemned"? Convicted is about the fact of been a criminal and condemned about the fact that you have a condamnation/conviction/sentence?

"Convicted" is a neutral, technical term meaning "a court found him guilty of that crime". "Condemned" can mean the same thing, with the added tone "the crime was particularly heinous or immoral, and he got served with a fitting, just and hard punishment". It includes a moral judgement about the crime and about the deservedness of the punishment. There are also meanings of "condemned" that are used in a religious context (so the same as above, but without the court of law) like "the sinner is condemned to hell for all eternity", "sisyphos was condemned to eternal useless labor". Metaphorically, it can also be used to describe someone without the power to exact punishment just telling off somebody for their immoral behaviour, like "the newspaper article condemned his doings as acts of barbarism".

The general difference is that "convicted" is neutral in tone. "Condemned" includes a particular tone, and religious and moral connotations, which might be unfitting in some cases.

Edit: Take the above with some grain of salt, might be at least incomplete, maybe somewhat wrong. After consulting the internet, I've found out that there are even more meanings and nuances, which I didn't know about. Sorry for being an arrogant non-native-speaker trying to score internet points ;)

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#118

Post by falcor84 »

falcor84 wrote: post #61
boltzmann-brain wrote: post #12

oh I wish the American people were this brave

Reading up about Israeli politics, it seems that this might be a "be careful what you wish for" situation. They had previously put in prison both a prime minister and a president, and the disastrous governance there over the last decade and a half appears to be in large motivated by Netanyahu's almost certain knowledge that he'll go to prison if and when he loses his grip on the reins. The documentary The Bibi Files…

Thinking about this some more, I'd like to offer an even more controversial opinion, being a proposal for a governance structure that I think would have entirely different failure modes:

How about it if by a fuller acceptance that power corrupts, we have the head of government only serve for one term and automatically be taken to (actual) prison once their time is done. They would then have an expedited trial by a socioeconomically diverse jury representing the population, judge their overreach in different areas, and how long of a sentence they should be given; at best, they would be released after a month or two for time served. Afterwards, unless this has been explicitly revoked from them due to gross misconduct, the former head of government would be given a sufficiently generous stipend to live and travel without ever needing to work again, and encouraged to spend the rest of their lives on charitable pursuits.

The big risk I see here is that by stripping some of the long-term power from the head of government, it would lead to a re-concentration of powers in a head of party role, or other behind-the-scenes power brokers, but the intent here is that the head of government once elected is explicitly given the ability to overreach, and particularly knowing that they'll be set for life, they'll have the freedom to act independently, in what hopefully would be their take on the country's best interests, and a desire to leave a positive legacy. And furthermore, I think that restricting the ascension to power to those who are willing to take on that prison time would attract people who are a bit less vain than the typical crop of candidates, and at the same time reduce the stigma of prison in general, and hopefully lead to political interest in improving prison conditions.

Re: French ex-president Sarkozy begins jail sentence

#120

Post by msh »

liendolucas wrote: post #116

Why when a high profile politic is sentenced it goes to a 5 star suite while the rest of mortals are thrown to a hole? It seems that when you cross a certain invisible threshold "justice" applies just a bit differently. Same in Argentina with corrupt and ex-robber Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Does he have better conditions than any other French persons convicted of a similar crime?
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