See this commentary by the best French blog on law matters. Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
His take on this story? In short: Welcome to my world.
There is a libel suit against the newspaper Libération. As it is the case in the French and other "non-Anglo" justice systems, the lawsuit is first investigated by an "investigating magistrate", before any possible indictments and eventual trial.
As the editor in chief of Libération at the time the alleged libel took place, de Filippis was summoned by the magistrate, judge Muriel Josié, by several letters sent to Libération offices.
First glitch: although the mail was received by the paper's attorneys, de Filippis apparently didn't defer to the summons and didn't show up at judge Josié office, for some reason still unclear. She then issued a warrant ("mandat d'amener") to have the police bring Mr de Filippis in front of her; so far, standard procedure.
Second glitch: the polce shows up at de Filippis residence at 6:40 AM, when the judge was obviously not ready to see him until several hours later. They then brought him to the police station and performed a body search (twice) which is both illegal in such a case but SOP nonetheless.
Once de Filippis finally sat in the judge's office, he asked for the presence of the Libération attorneys, instead of the public defender on duty, and declined to answer judge Josié's questions until then. Judge Josié notified an official indictment (for the libel case) to de Filippis and then released him ("Didn't have any other choice", wrote Eolas).
According to Eolas, this kind of treatment, at the limits of legality, is daily occurrence for his and fellow criminal defense attorneys clients. "We do protest these gross abuses of procedure, relentlessly. [...] To no avail." This story is getting media coverage only because the "subject" happens, for once, to be a journalist and former editor and not "someone named Mohamed".
Just business as usual in our Republic, where ordinary citizens are usually not sensitive to defense rights laws (you can't be too severe with the criminals, right?).
Eolas:"And one fine day, these [laws] could apply to you. You just see how well they're protecting you, then." Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
