Lebanon: "Lawyers are the last guarantors of the rule of law"

Jérôme Gavaudan is a lawyer and president of the National Bar Council.

Lebanese lawyers are in danger.

In a bloodless country, they are the ultimate bulwark against corruption and the law of the strongest.

They are the last who still plead for the rights of their fellow citizens and that is perhaps why they have become targets.

For a month now, my colleagues from the Beirut Bar have been on strike.

They denounce the deterioration in the conditions for exercising the legal profession and the threats to which they are subject from certain magistrates and the internal security forces.

President of the Bar Melehm Khalaf courageously leads this sling of black robes against those who threaten the rule of law and the future of Lebanon.

This broad movement was initiated following several arrests of lawyers at the Beirut Bar who are subject to temporary bans from practicing and entering the Tribunal, in defiance of the essential principles of our profession. and the disciplinary powers of Lebanese ordinal authorities.

The role of the security and intelligence services in these arrests continues to worry all those who want the rights of defense to continue in a country threatened by the disintegration of civil society.

The French authorities, the President of the Republic in first place, can act today to save the Lebanese bar tomorrow.

Jerome Gavaudan

The lawyers of France, France, no one can remain insensitive and motionless in the face of the danger that weighs on these colleagues of French-speaking culture, actors of civil law and vigilantes of freedoms in a region constantly shaken by geopolitics and internal struggles.

The French authorities, the President of the Republic in first place, can act today to save the Lebanese bar tomorrow.

Without its bar, Lebanon would only be a state emptied of its substance.

With a bar under orders, Lebanon would no longer be a rule of law.

Monday, July 12, the black robes of the Beirut Bar will come together to express their concern and try to reconnect with the judiciary.

I will be with them, with I hope other black dresses from France and elsewhere.

Our common place is indeed with them, while a bill on the independence of the judiciary is due to be examined shortly by the parliamentary committee on administration and justice.

What is at stake with lawyers in Lebanon is no more and no less than the hopes that we can all have for the survival of the rule of law in the Near and Middle East.