It is a new law which is being debated this Tuesday in debate in the National Assembly. A text refused by all the lawyers who are stepping up to the plate.
Lawyers from the Nîmes, Alès, Tarascon and Avignon Bars took action this Monday to denounce “legal privilege”… A complex and confusing term which could well change the future of procedures by favoring large companies to the detriment of small employees or whistleblowers, according to the lawyers present in Nîmes this Tuesday morning.
The president of the Conference of Presidents recently said how badly the profession thought about this legal privilege: acknowledgement legal privilege “would be likely to weaken the professional secrecy of the lawyer”. “The guarantee of defense rights is based on this professional secrecy, the pillar of the relationship of trust between lawyers and clients, ensuring the preservation of fairness and justice. This secrecy cannot be extended to lawyers whose missions are limited to the interests of the company. », denounced in the newspaper The Palace Gazette the president of the conference of baroniers of France, Jean-Raphaël Fernandez, asking parliamentarians to reject this text. “This development would be likely to undermine the principle of the right to proof, enshrined by the highest French and European courts (…) How will litigants (consumers, employees, etc.) be able to provide proof of the actions that they denounce, in particular before the industrial tribunal, if companies refuse in the name of confidentiality to produce documents that could harm them”, summarizes, always in the Palace Gazette, this president of the conference of presidents.
In Nîmes, the slingshot is identical. “When a litigant wants to take legal action, he will not be able to do so and he will not be able to show all the violations that could exist within a company because he will be presented with documents subject to the confidentiality of the company lawyer. “estimates the president of Nîmes, Maître Aoudia.
However, if all the jurists in France are up in arms against this text studied this Tuesday in the National Assembly, it will be well debated today. A text wanted by a small handful of Parisian lawyers supported by the Chancellery and its boss Éric Dupond-Moretti. “He is no longer a lawyer, he is Keeper of the Seals“, blasts the Avignon president Philippe Cano, very critical of this “legal privilege” which will allow lawyers within the company to have a role similar to that of a lawyer without “to have the assistance, the ethics“, recalls the president of Tarascon.”Our legal profession is under attack. On the eve of May 1, there will be one more obstacle to freedom of information with whistleblowers who will be gagged“, insists another lawyer who came to this inter-bar event. “With this law, if it passes, it will be additional protection for businesses and business crimes. It will be even more move around there is nothing to see“, adds another black dress.
Local lawyers who denounce, like all the bars of France, this “legal privilege.”Despite the opposition of all lawyers, certain influential lobbies and a few Parisian lawyers weigh more than us, even if they are in the ultra minority., insists another president. It remains to be seen whether this “legal privilege” will be voted for by a majority of parliamentarians while the revolt of the black dresses has only just begun.
