Request to lift Tapie’s immunity rejected

Date: 08/02/1996

UNMOVED by appeals from the French government, the European Parliament's rules committee has decided that fellow MEP Bernard Tapie should not be stripped of his parliamentary immunity.

Tapie, who was found guilty of rigging a 1993 football match between Valenciennes and Marseilles but has appealed against the verdict, could be sentenced to prison under French law, despite his parliamentary immunity. He cannot, however, be jailed pending his appeal. French authorities, fearing Tapie would skip the country while his appeal was being considered, asked MEPs to lift his immunity to allow them to hold him in prison.

By a large majority, the rules committee decided to reject the request. “Under current law, the prosecution can still go ahead. The committee felt that the French had not made an adequate case for restraining him in the meantime,” explained British Socialist Glyn Ford. “We felt that if he were going to disappear he would have done so by now.”

The committee was also influenced by the fact that the French national assembly had refused to agree entirely to a similar request to strip Tapie of his special status, according to Ford. Deputies there agreed to permit the judicial inquiry to proceed, but refused to allow the police to detain their colleague in prison.

The rules committee considered evidence presented by the French government, as well as testimony given by the French MEP two weeks ago, before coming to a decision at a closed meeting earlier this week.

The full assembly is set to decide during next week's plenary whether or not to endorse the committee's verdict. While not obliged to do so, it would be very unusual for the full Parliament to go against the advice of its rules committee.

Rapporteur Dutch Liberal Florus Wijsenbeek will ask the committee to consider what impact lifting Tapie's immunity would have on the Parliament.

“This is less to do with Tapie than with the institution itself. What we have to decide is what effect a positive decision would have on the Parliament and whether we should restrict waivers of immunity to members accused of political crimes,” he explained.