Carlos Ghosn has left Japan.
And the hold that the prosecuting authorities still had on him.
Leakage for the authorities. Liberation from injustice for the principal. And stunned his defense team.
In general, in the defense we can only be happy that a man regains his – relative – freedom. Is it smart to win her back in this way if we reason in the long run and, in particular, in terms of the trust capital that the person concerned will probably need at the time of his trial? The question can be left open at this point.
For many advocates around the world, this news is a bad omen for the New Year. It is indeed episodes of this kind that, in the eyes of the public and of some magistrates, seriously undermine the sense of effectiveness, and even the relevance, of alternative measures to pre-trial detention. Worse, they add fuel to the fire of those who tirelessly hammer home the point that neither house arrest nor the deposit of passports in the hands of third parties or authorities can prevent the risk of flight.
However, as an alternative to pre-trial detention, the courts of constraint measures still sometimes pronounce the house arrest of a detainee, order the deposit of his identity documents or oblige him to report regularly to a police station. And it works!
So we can already hear, like a sneer under the teeth of the Public Ministry, the not even veiled allusions (it’s a good thing) to the escape/release of Carlos Ghosn’s injustice, the next time a detainee will ask for his release in benefit of alternative measures…
However, the case of Carlos Ghosn is truly extraordinary because of the various “inhumane” bans he claims to have been subjected to as part of his house arrest. This case should therefore be treated as such and should not be over-generalized, nor should it be considered as representative of a recurrent problem in relation to house arrest and the deposit of identity papers.
Thus, for all these detainees who will remain so because of the possible indirect influence of this isolated incident (!), we can only hope that Carlos Ghosn will succeed in demonstrating the injustice and the inhuman treatment he alleges.
Best wishes for success in 2020 Mr. Ghosn! ????
