DE: CXK/007/MEG/JPB
By instituting a mandatory judicial control of the requests of extradition, the law has not intended to entrust the government with the authority to reverse judicial decisions and their reasons. Once the decision has become final, such reasons are binding on all. Therefore, the contentions made in the letter of 20th March 1992 can not justify, in law, a refusal to extradite.
2. They can even less do so that they sees, in addition, to evidence
a manifest error.
a) The note of 20th March 1992 states firstly that the reasons of the negative advice given on 4th November 1987 are conclusively binding on all. There is there an insurmountable contradiction: either the reasons of the "Chambre d'accusation" have such radical authority, and one does not understand why the reasons of the advice, which is in addition subsequent, of 30th October 1990 should be held as non-existent by the French government; or, on the contrary, the French government considers that it can reverse the reasons of the advice of 30th October 1990 and one does not understand how it could be bound by the reasons of a previous decision. The reasoning is not logical.
Two indications should be given here. Firstly, the position taken in the note of 20th March oaits the fact that the "Chambre d'accusation" took into account, to make its decision of 1990, a series of new facts, which led it to decide that it should sake a new decision. It seems difficult to forget that in its advice of 1990, the "Chambre d'accusation" has expressly made a decision on the problem which is raised today by the French authorities.
Secondly, the position so taken shows a double mistake. Firstly, by making with respect to res judicata, an assessment which reverses that of the "Chambre d'accusation", the French government is acting as a court and more exactly as a superior court. It breaches therefore the fundamental rule whereby the court to which a matter is referred is always (subject only to a possible right of appeal) the judge of its own jurisdiction and of whether a case has been validly submitted to it. The "Chaabre d'accusation" of the Court of Appeal of Versailles having expressly made a decision on this issue, only the "Cour de cassation" had the authority to question its assessment. It confirmed it.
The assessment made on this issue by the judicial authorities can not therefore be changed.
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