His name will forever be associated with the abolition of the death penalty.
Robert Badinter, lawyer and politician who died on the night of Thursday February 8 to Friday February 9, nevertheless became the leading figure in other battles when he was Minister of Justice, from 1981 to 1986.
Le Figaro
returns on some of the numerous measures taken by the former minister which had a lasting impact on French society and the functioning of justice.
Decriminalization of homosexuality
Robert Badinter puts an end to the criminalization of homosexuality, introduced as an offense by the Vichy regime in 1942. The bill, presented by Robert Badinter and the deputy Gisèle Halimi, who is its rapporteur, is adopted on July 27 1982, after the Minister of Justice urged the chamber to
“become aware of everything that France owes to homosexuals as to all other citizens in so many areas”
.
Previously, the law established sexual majority at 21 years for homosexual people, while it was set at 15 years for heterosexual people.
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A question far from being closed, while reparation for the harm of the French State towards homosexual people during these years of repression was the subject of a bill in the Senate in November 2023 and will be debated at the National Assembly in March.
Robert Badinter has never stopped defending homosexual people: his play,
C.3.3.
(Actes Sud, 1999), recounts the
“judicial destiny”
of Oscar Wilde, sentenced in 1985 to two years in prison for his homosexuality - the title being a reference to his prison number.
In 2009, Robert Badinter sponsored the first world congress against homophobia and transphobia organized at the Quai d'Orsay.
Improvement of prison conditions
As Minister of Justice, Robert Badinter also worked throughout his five years in office to improve living conditions in prisons.
From October 1981, the Reinforced Security Neighborhoods, known as
“QRS”
or High Security Neighborhoods, which had been put in place by the decree of May 23, 1975, were abolished.
These special quarters housed convicts considered dangerous.
Places where strict measures were applied, going as far as isolation, the
“QRS”
had been strongly criticized.
The minister also allows the improvement of the working conditions of guards as well as the rights of prisoners, who obtain authorization to create associations, to arrange their cells as they wish or to correspond or telephone their loved ones regularly.
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Robert Badinter also took a first step towards a reform of prison medicine, by allowing with the decree of January 30, 1984 the abolition of the medical inspection of prisons.
The law of January 3, 1985 also establishes hospitals intended to accommodate inmates of public hospitalization establishments.
Improvement of victims' rights
The minister does not forget the victims, for whom he promotes better defense.
At his request, professor of medicine Paul Milliez is conducting a study on ways to improve their monitoring.
His report, presented in July 1982, established that the victim
“feels poorly protected against intimidation or even new crimes, left in ignorance of his rights and the progress of the criminal prosecution, forced to wait endlessly , loss of time and salary, which are rarely reimbursed
.
Faced with this observation, a victims' assistance office was established at the chancellery in September of the same year.
In 1985, the Badinter law allowed the creation of a special compensation scheme for victims of traffic accidents.
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Before becoming president of the Constitutional Council in 1986, a position he held for nine years, Robert Badinter also launched numerous projects, some of which - such as the reform of the Superior Council of the Judiciary - remain unfinished, while others, such as the overhaul of the Penal Code, voted on shortly after his departure in 1986, owe a lot to the tireless jurist.
Abolition of the State Security Court and the “TPFA”
As soon as he arrived at Place Vendôme, Robert Badinter set about removing laws that he perceived as restrictive to public freedom, a legacy of the Vichy period or the Algerian War.
Among these, the State Security Court, a special institution partly composed of soldiers established by General de Gaulle following the Algerian War in 1963. Its aim was to judge crimes and offenses affecting to state security.
The abolition of this court, voted in July 1981 in the National Assembly following a bill by Robert Badinter, was part of François Mitterand's campaign promises.
In the process, another exceptional jurisdiction, the
“TPFA”
, or permanent courts of the armed forces, set up in 1953 to judge infractions of the code of military justice and crimes and misdemeanors committed by the military, were abolished on July 21, 1982.
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Individual appeal before the ECHR
On October 2, 1981, recognition of individual appeal before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) was established.
Since then, more than 33,600 individual applications have been filed before the Court, of which more than 2% have resulted in a conviction against France, according to the Ministry of Justice.
In a retrospective on this law before the Court of Cassation published in 2021, Robert Badinter returned to what he described as
“a great fight”
, recalling
“that after the Second World War, democracies and women and law-loving men absolutely wanted to overhaul and strengthen the system of guarantees of rights and fundamental freedoms”
It is also with the ECHR that Robert Badinter will strengthen the abolition of the death penalty by ratifying additional protocol no. 6 to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights on April 28, 1983, which makes it a legal obligation for the signatory States.
The law was definitively promulgated shortly before the end of his mandate at the Ministry of Justice, on December 31, 1985.