The old lion has closed his eyes, the world of justice is in deep mourning, and the lawyers’ robes are blacker than ever. Henri Leclerc died at the age of 90, Saturday, August 31 in Paris, after seventy years at the bar and as many years of stubborn defense of freedoms. Mr. Leclerc was one of the last giants of his time, and when the rumor spread, in the courts or tribunals, that he was going to plead, colleagues, magistrates, students, slipped discreetly into the room to learn from the old master.
He stood there, with his good smile, a heavy, reassuring figure in his threadbare dress, with that white hair, that warm, confident, friendly voice that flowed like a river; Leclerc did not plead, he spoke, as a friend, he confided his doubts, his certainties, his questions, with simple words and great good nature. We listened to him, we slipped with him into emotion, and often into anger, against justice, against injustice. “Even in the most hateful atmospheres, he manages to envelop the room with his curves, with his whole body, it’s physical, said of him Mr. Thierry Lévy, another great lawyer, with a colder style, who died in 2017. He says something to the jury: “What a good man! The man he’s defending can’t be that bad.”
But the old lawyer also knew how to be formidable, and his cross-examinations were merciless. He would wait for the witness, expert or police officer to answer, a report in his hand, sucking on the arm of his glasses – well aware of the principle of the defense that a lawyer should only ask questions to which he knows the answer. The unfortunate man on the grill would quickly get tangled up in his contradictions, and the old lion would send him a terrible claw blow that would leave him trembling and bloodless, his testimony ruined forever. Henri Leclerc would sit down peacefully with a half-smile, waiting for the next one.
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Young Henri first encountered justice at the age of 11, in October 1945, after his father became very angry during the trial of Pierre Laval. The father, a tax official, loathed the mastermind of collaboration with Germany, but was indignant at the parody of a trial of the former head of government, shot after a suicide attempt. The press release from the attorney general, “Mr. Laval’s life is no longer in danger”before dragging him half-dead in front of the firing squad, had grabbed the little boy.
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