The lawyers of the victims and their relatives launched on Monday in an unprecedented thematic collective pleading. The intention was laudable, the first impression is mixed.
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“How, in a few minutes each, were we going to say the infinite diversity of the victims, and at the same time emphasize the links that unite them? How, in a few minutes each, did we speak of both our customers, but also what, through them, was targeted by the terrorists? This seemed to us simply unfeasible. “
The pleadings of the lawyers of civil parties began Monday May 23, began from the last straight line of the trial of the attacks of November 13 which must lead to a verdict on June 29, and as M pointed out E Frédérique Giffard in a introductory remarks, with some 330 lawyers representing more than 2,500 civil parties, pleading as usual was not possible. Something had to invent something.
Almost half of the lawyers representing two thirds of the civil parties therefore agreed on “an unprecedented form”: a collective argument not focused on their customers, but on the big questions raised at the hearing – radicalization, violence of facts, physical injuries, post-traumatic stress, mourning, resilience, the force of the trial, etc. Several dozen lawyers have agreed not to plead, the others have worked on a theme, no one left at the helm.
“Our hope is that each of the civil parties is found in one or the other of these pleadings, which she feels welcomed, with other companions of misfortune, and that this Last stop before the end of the trial helps him get out of it by feeling a little less alone, “said M e giffard, warning:” As often the first times, it will not be perfect . “
It is not, indeed. During the first three days of this choral argument, the laudable starting intention has often disappeared behind a laborious implementation, embarrassing at times, which arouses questions about what must or what a lawyer of lawyers can be Civil part.
redundancy and bad boxes
The lawyers general of the National Anti -terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) will require, in June, sentences against the accused they consider guilty and will say on which elements is based, according to them, this guilt. Defense lawyers will then try to mitigate the responsibility or even demonstrate their client’s innocence against the Court. But what can a civil party lawyer argue in such a trial? At the “classic” assizes, his argument is generally an opportunity to pay a final tribute to the victim or to describe the suffering of his relatives. But in this immense trial, where it was done with such power, and rather four hundred times than one, by the survivors and relatives of the victims?
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