Hospital suicides: Complaint against ministers Catherine Vautrin, Elisabeth Borne and Yannick Neuder dismissed

A complaint alleging suicides among healthcare workers in public hospitals, filed in particular for "moral harassment" and "involuntary homicide," has been dismissed, the Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Rémy Heitz, announced on Thursday, June 26. It targeted the Ministers of Health, Catherine Vautrin, and Education, Elisabeth Borne, as well as the Minister Delegate for Health and Access to Healthcare, Yannick Neuder, who were deemed responsible for the degraded working conditions in public institutions.

"I am very surprised by the closure of this complaint, which contains 359 particularly substantiated documents," ^Christelle Mazza, the lawyer for 19 plaintiffs, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "We are facing a state scandal with the intention of allowing a form of impunity to continue within public hospitals," she denounced.

In total, "19 complaints from individuals" were submitted to the Court of Justice of the Republic (CJR) on April 10, said Attorney General Rémy Heitz, who serves as public prosecutor at the CJR. They denounced "acts characterized as moral harassment, fatal violence, involuntary homicide and endangering the person, following suicides that occurred in hospitals." These complaints also targeted the three ministers.

The CJR's complaints committee declared 18 of them inadmissible "due to procedural irregularities," the attorney general added. The magistrates and advisers of this committee "also dismissed the only complaint declared admissible, on the grounds that it did not contain 'elements likely to characterize a crime or offense committed by the ministers in question in the exercise of their functions,'" he explained. "This decision is not subject to any appeal," Mr. Heitz emphasized.

The complaint, consulted by AFP, recalled in its preamble that the "major crisis" that the public hospital has been experiencing "for many years seems to have worsened since around 2012-2013, through the continued application of neoliberal public policies which, despite numerous particularly worrying warning signs, including suicides, have not been corrected, quite the contrary."

The reports denounced "totally illegal and deadly working conditions" , "unsustainable work schedules" in various medical professions, specialties and regions of France, as well as "organized impunity against the perpetrators of the acts" .

The CJR is the only court empowered to prosecute and try members of the government for offenses committed in the exercise of their functions.