Rape charges –
The European Court will look at the Luc Besson affair
Actress Sand Van Roy seized the ECHR after a dismissal pronounced by French justice. His request was deemed admissible, the first important step.
The Belgian-Dutch actress Sand Van Roy accused Luc Besson of rape in 2018, and French justice pronounced a dismissal in 2021.
AFP
France could be condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for its management of the legal proceedings between Sand Van Roy and the filmmaker Luc Besson. European justice has judged the request of the admissible actress, according to information from Mediapart.
The Belgian-Dutch actress who accused Luc Besson of rape in 2018 seized the European body after being dismissed by French justice. In this case of sexual violence that had seen eight other women denounce inappropriate sexual behavior on the part of the director, a dismissal was first pronounced in December 2021, confirmed by the Court of Appeal Paris in May 2022. Then the Court of Cassation rejected the appeal of Sand Van Roy in June 2023.
In his request filed in October 2023, Sand Van Roy believes that “his physical and moral integrity was not respected during the procedure”, specifies the investigation media. The investigation is, moreover, deemed “incomplete”. There “secondary victimizationThat she says she lived – be the fact of suffering violence as a victim during legal proceedings – is also highlighted.
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Two -step procedure by the ECHR
The ECHR does not systematically retain the requests addressed to it, far from it: only about 10% are examined. But, in the case of the actress, “the request filed in October 2023 passed the difficult first filter of the European Court, paving the way for an examination of this file by the judges,” explains Mediapart.
The procedure will now follow different phases. The first – non -contentious – will aim to explore the possibility of an amicable agreement, with a compensation proposal, before October 13, 2025. A strictly procedural approach. In the absence of such an agreement, a contentious phase will open, and the French government will then have twelve weeks to submit its observations.
No comment from Luc Besson
There is a good chance that this second step be put in place, Sand Van Roy having declared to Mediapart that “only a condemnation of the French state could [lui] provide moral repair ”.
Contacted by the French media, Sand Van Roy and his lawyer Pascal Créhange declined all comments on this current affair. For his part, Luc Besson, asked via his lawyer Thierry Marembert, did not follow up. The director has just released a brand new film in the cinema, «Dracula».
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