Badinter, Robert

            Badinter, Robert

1		PRESENTATION

Robert Badinter, on the abolition of the death penalty

September 18, 1981, at the end of the speech of presentation pronounced by Robert Badinter  —remained like one of the great moments of the parliamentary eloquence—, the French National Assembly votes the abolition of the death penalty in France, with a majority of 369 votes: "I felt, throughout debate, permanent the, constant one and, I can say it, ulcerating charge of the indifference to the victims, which there is, with my direction, of worse like attitude: it is the exploitation of the misfortune of the victims. What abolition, if not the refusal of violence mortal, mortal of the State but then still much more, of violence mortal of the individual. In the heart of abolition, there is this refusal of violence and death. Then of which right, in the name of which skill, by which diversion, one comes here constantly to say "think of the victims". But of the victims constantly let us think we of it. Only the argument there makes it possible to go to sharp from the sensitivities, to draw aside the expenditure of the reason once again, and to maintain the old order of the things which blocks justice "

Badinter, Robert (1928-), French lawyer and politician, Minister for the Justice (1981-1986) whose action at the origin of the abolition of the death penalty in France, then president of the constitutional Council (1986-1995).

2

LAWYER AND PROFESSOR OF RIGHT

Born in Paris, Robert Badinter is titular of Masters of Arts and aggregate of right. Responsible for practical work to the Faculty of Law of Paris (1954-1958), then aggregate professor of right in Dijon (1966), Besancon and Amiens (1969), he becomes professor at the university of Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne) in 1974. He adheres to the socialist Party in 1971 and exerts various responsibilities within the League for the humans right, of Amnesty International and the authorities of the community israélite.

Lawyer at the Court of Appeal of Paris, in charge of the interests of several financial and industrial companies, it also pleads in many criminal businesses, where it is directly confronted with the problem of the capital punishment. In 1972, he is the lawyer of Roger Bontems, considered to be guilty with Claude Buffet of a fatal taking of hostages to the power station of Clairvaux, who are both guillotinés. Starting from this lawsuit, it engages resolutely for abolition of the death penalty and obtains in 1977 the life sentence for Patrick Henry, the murderer of a child. During following years, it defends all condemned to dead which are rejugés, after the stops of the Supreme court of appeal breaking the death sentence.

3

MINISTER FOR JUSTICE (1981-1986)

Robert Badinter plays an active role at the time of the presidential campaigns of François Mitterrand of 1974 and 1981 and is named, in June 1981, Minister of Justice, in the government of Pierre Mauroy. For this reason, he is the author of the bill of abolition of the death penalty, which is voted on September 18, 1981. Anxious to modernize justice, and to put it in conformity with the humans right, it undertakes many reforms of the legal and prison system inspired by the concern of directing justice in a less repressive direction. Thus it repeals the law known as "safety and freedom" (June 10, 1983), the law "anti-riot" (December 23, 1981) and which it removes the offence of homosexuality (August 4, 1982). It removes also certain jurisdictions of exceptions like the State security court (August 4, 1981) and the courts of the forces armed in times with peace (July 21, 1982).

In order to fight against the progression of the delinquency, it develops the nonprivative sorrows of freedom as day-amends them or work of general interests in order to offer an alternative to the sorrows of imprisonment in the event of minor offences. For this purpose, it creates the national Council and departmental councils of prevention of the delinquency.

Worried by the situations of overpopulation in prison medium, it engages of the reforms aiming at humanizing the situation of the prisoners (visiting rooms without separation, removal of the districts of high safety, construction of new prisons, etc).

Lastly, it improves the access of the citizens to justice by widening the right for associations to constitute civil parts as regards crimes against humanity, of (June 10, 1983) and crime war crimes in racist matter (January 3, 1985). It also works so that France recognizes the right for very justiciable exerting an individual recourse to the Commission and the European Court of the humans right, in the event of violation of the European Convention of the humans right (October 9, 1981).

4

PRESIDENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL COUNCIL (1986-1995)

Invited to succeed Daniel Mayer with the presidency of the constitutional Council, Robert Badinter takes his functions on February 19, 1986. He continues the policy of his predecessors, aiming at turning into to the Council a vigilant defender of public freedoms and a guarantor of the continuity of the institutions, during one time marked by three political alternations (1986, 1988 and 1993) and two experiments of cohabitation between different political majorities within the executive power. Its mandate expired in 1995, it is replaced by Roland Dumas, former Foreign Minister. Robert Badinter implies himself in favour of the Court of conciliation and arbitration, created in 1992 within the framework of the Conference for safety and the co-operation in Europe (CSCE), which has the aim of working out peaceful solutions in the event of disagreement opposing the States. He is elected senator of the Top-of-Seine in 1995 and is re-elected in 2004.

Robert Badinter is in addition the author of several works of which  the Execution  (1973), in which it reports the lawsuit and the execution of Roger Bontems; a biography devoted to Condorcet (Condorcet, an intellectual in policy,  1988), written in collaboration with its wife, Élisabeth Badinter;  Free and equal  (1989) and a historical test entitled  the republican Prison  (1992).  Abolition,  recalling its combat for the abolition of the death penalty, receives the price Femina tests in 2000. In 2002, it publishes  a European Constitution,  written article by article, in order to contribute to the reflexions carried out by Convention on the future of Europe, chaired by Valéry Giscard d' Estaing.  Against the death penalty  (2006), compilation of texts and speech, is a new plea in favour of the abolition of the death penalty in the world.