Saved in spite of themselves.
In extremis, the Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti reviewed and corrected Article 3 of the Confidence in Justice law, which engraves the professional secrecy of lawyers in stone in the code of criminal procedure.
It will now concern both the defense of clients and the advice of the lawyer, with the exception for the latter of the offenses of corruption, financing of terrorism, tax fraud and money laundering of these three offenses.
The new version of the text also affirms the presence of the President of the Bar during searches of law firms.
Read also Lawyer secrecy will suffer from exceptions
This final version of a text that created a lot of turmoil within the profession owes a lot to the tenacity of the Keeper of the Seals who has always sworn that he would protect lawyers' secrets, and to the will of Yaël Braun-Pivet and by François-Noël Buffet, respectively President of the National Assembly Law Commission and Chairman of the Senate Law Commission.
Both have put aside their political antagonisms and their susceptibility to try to reach, with the Chancellery, a compromise text which they consider more protective of professional secrecy than until then positive law and the law. jurisprudence.
Ambiguous writing
The case had turned to psychodrama within the profession in recent weeks, to the point of triggering this morning small demonstrations of angry lawyers, in particular under the gates of the National Assembly.
"What is certain is that when we mobilize, we make things evolve
", pleads Olivier Cousi, president of Paris. Indeed, made ambiguous by the drafting that came out of the joint committee on October 21, the text suggested that the President of the Bar would no longer be present during searches of lawyers, and suggested that during the latter, the lawyer could not no longer oppose professional secrecy as soon as it has "
is the subject of maneuvers or actions for the purpose of unintentionally allowing the commission or prosecution or concealment of an offense
”.
An unbearable presumption of guilt for lawyers.
Read also Eric Dupond-Moretti wants to develop work in prisons
From October 23, the Keeper of the Seals wanted to reassure his former colleagues.
In order to erase the dangers of this drafting, he had promised them, a rare procedure, to table a final government amendment of precision during the final vote on the law.
In this case this evening in the National Assembly, and Thursday in the same terms in the Senate.
The new amendment purely and simply deletes the paragraph on the unintentional concealment of an offense, and on the other hand reaffirms the presence of the President of the Bar during any search.
A profession united?
Will this be enough to reassure the lawyers?
The profession was torn for three good weeks, within the National Council of Bars, with the strange effect of seeing the unions of far-left lawyers join the positions of the great Parisian business bar, which would have wanted the Lawyer's secrecy does not suffer from any exceptions.
This position would have been difficult to pass the caudine forks of the Constitutional Council.
Monday, this holy alliance resulted in a vote of the profession which purely and simply requested the deletion of the article and the return to the
ante
situation
.
Parliament and the government, which has the final say, have chosen not to take it into account.
