On 10 October 2001, the Court of Cassation ruled that, while the president cannot be prosecuted by normal judicial means during his mandate, such an impossibility suspends the delays of prescription (statute of limitation).
Chirac's foremost critic was deputy Arnaud Montebourg of the Socialist Party, who filed a motion to bring him in front of the High Court of Justice (a procedure similar to impeachment, which has never been applied).
There was a shock when a videocassette of businessman Jean-Claude Méry [fr] was disclosed after his death in 1999, with Le Monde publishing its full contents in September 2000.
In September 2001, the Paris Appeal Court cancelled part of the proceedings on procedural vices, and removing the affair from judge Halphen's hands.
The previous investigations had led to the resignation of magistrate Éric Halphen after several cases of intimidation and a tight struggle against the executive power.
The investigating magistrate Armand Riberolles, who succeeded Eric Halphen, wrote that the "instruction hadn't been able to formally establish the personal involvement of responsible members of the higher echelons of the RPR", while noting that "a large number of testimonies, cross-checked by various factual elements, show that Jean-Claude Méry had been commissioned to ensure the financing of the RPR's political activities by collecting funds, in particular through the firms working with the OPAC.
Inquiries showed that 2% of the payments from the Île-de-France council to companies involved in building or repairs on the region's high schools were to be channeled as kickbacks to political parties, either through legal contributions (permitted under the 15 January 1990 law then in force), or through cash deliveries of fictitious employment (i.e. staff of political parties or politicians being paid by the involved companies).
The investigations were conducted by investigating judges Armand Riberolles and Marc Brisset-Foucault In March 2005, the case went to trial before the Paris correctional court[10][11] In October 2005, former president of the Île-de-France region Michel Giraud was condemned to four years of prison on probation and to pay an 80 000 euros fine; Michel Roussin, former chief of staff of Jacques Chirac, was also condemned to four years of prison on probation and to a 50 000 euros fine.
Alain Juppé, former secretary-general of the RPR (1988–1995) and former deputy mayor in charge of finances of the City of Paris (1983–1995) and had served as prime minister in 1995-97 was convicted along with accomplices Louise-Yvonne Casetta [fr] and Patrick Stefanini [fr] of abuse of public funds when he employed people on the city's payroll to perform tasks wholly for the benefit of his party.
This decision was criticized because there was no legal nor constitutional basis for it: normally, questions of judicial honesty are handled by the Conseil Supérieur de la Magistrature (CSM), which (politely) protested Chirac's action.
The current administration of the City of Paris, led by Socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoë, had appealed the prescription ruling before the Court of Cassation.
[7] In 2004, mayor Bertrand Delanoë filed a complaint for the past abuse of City of Paris gardening services for private purposes, estimating the public losses to at least €700,000.