The modest table in room A216 of the Senate had, this Thursday, March 14, the air of a tribune; or rather from the defense bench, when representatives of the National Bar Council (CNB), the conference of presidents and bars of Marseille and Paris, spoke, elbow to elbow, heard by the Commission of Inquiry “ drug trafficking”. Where investigators, elected officials, magistrates and experts have followed one another, for more than three months, to share their analysis on the threats of drug trafficking, it is a dissonant voice that has been brought before the senators.
The lawyers’ representatives had the mission of defending their profession – and particularly the role and practices of their colleagues pleading in drug trafficking cases. Of the hour and a half planned for this exchange, nearly an hour was devoted to introductory remarks tinged with cold anger.
The six interviewees make no secret of it: their message is above all a reaction to the statements delivered before this same commission a few days earlier. A form of ” return match “as the president of the commission, Jérôme Durain, socialist senator from Saône-et-Loire, will regret during the hearing.
“Desperate confusion between lawyer and client”
The first leg took place on March 5, during the hearing of the heads of jurisdiction of the Marseille judicial court. It was experienced as an affront by criminal lawyers, portrayed as blockers of procedures, or even assimilated to their clients, from whom they shamelessly accepted the “cash” resulting from trafficking.
The statements of Isabelle Couderc, vice-president in charge of instruction at the interregional jurisdiction specializing in the fight against crime and organized delinquency in Marseille, had led to incomprehension and anger. Particularly when she denounced “the permanent and dilatory questioning of the acts carried out by a certain defense which is not constructive”emphasizing that “Delinquents pay very dearly for a defense that will not fight on the merits of the case – often damning – but on the procedure, by multiplying systematic challenges to certain investigative acts, or else outright use stratagems to at least final obtain releases of offenders ».
Since then, from the corridors of the courts to social networks, there has been a murmur of silent revolt. The very day after the controversial hearing, two criminal lawyers took their place at the same Senate table. Steeve Ruben and Philippe-Henry Honegger provided an initial counterpoint. Without denying the importance of the fight against drug trafficking and its consequences, they already underlined the fundamental role of lawyers in the protection “against abuse of power”.
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