One last amendment of the Government makes it possible to consolidate the professional secrecy of the lawyers, who demanded the total removal of Article 3, an attitude up to the elected officer.
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The bill “for confidence in the judicial institution” was approved shortly before midnight, Tuesday, 16 November, at the National Assembly by 66 votes to 11. Eric Dupond-Moretti, Minister of Justice, Failure to approve a last-minute amendment to this text to close the psychodrama that has been played in recent weeks around the professional secrecy of lawyers. From a compromise with the Senate, the bill still needs to be voted Thursday at the Luxembourg Palace before being promulgated.
If this text of 66 articles is quite disparate, with provisions for filming hearings, governing the duration of the preliminary investigations, generalizing the criminal courses or reforming the plan of the reductions of difficulty, it is the professional secrecy of the lawyers who have monopolized the attention at the Palais-Bourbon.
The Minister of Justice had launched an ultimatum to the lawyers, Friday, November 12, their intimacy to take a position on the bill. He chose Tuesday not to follow the option they chose. The National Bar Council, representative body of the 70,000 lawyers, had voted Monday requesting the pure and simple suppression of article 3 of the bill. A position deemed incomprehensible by several political groups, who criticized the attitude of the profession.
“We will not let corporatist postures jeopardize progress that protects the litigant”, particularly said Stéphane Mazars (the Republic in March, Aveyron) rapporteur of the bill that expressed his “bitterness”. Antoine Savignat (Republicans, Val-d’Oise), providing support to the Minister of Justice on this text and his provisions on professional secrecy, has thus castigated “divergent interests” of a profession whose positions of positions were judged changing. According to him, “the question of the representation of the profession should legitimately land, in his interest”. For the member for Val-d’Oise, “Jurisprudence is today much more dangerous for the lawyer’s professional secrecy that the adopted text. Delete article 3 would have been a serious mistake.”
“too imprecise and too vase”
Initially, the Government’s project had planned to devote the professional secrecy of the Defense in the Code of Criminal Procedure. At first reading, in May, MPs extended this guarantee to the counsel activities of lawyers. But before the concern of the National Financial Public Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) and specialized investigative services in the field of economic and financial delinquency, the Senate brought an exception at first reading an exception. The secret would no longer be opposable for consulting activities when investigations relate to tax evidence, corruption or money laundering of these offenses.
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