Ethics against morality

I’m glad to be a citizen of France - and not the USA - where the judiciary system remains firm to defend ethics against morality. I will always wish the fairest justice to my worst enemies.

I translated this opinion column published in “Le Monde” on the International Women’s Day. More than one hundred female lawyers reacted to the polemic following Polanski’s awarding at the Cesar Ceremony to defend the two legal principles of presumption of innocence and prescription.

“A worrying presumption of culpability invites itself too often when it comes to sexual offenses”

The vehement polemic that has followed the 45th César Awarding Ceremony obligates us, we who are altogether women, lawyers and criminal lawyers: we are women working in a field where tenors are dominant and for whom the idiom “no sex under the robe” is nothing but a vain wish; we are lawyers viscerally attached to the principles which found our law, starting with the presumption of innocence and prescription; we are criminal lawyers confronted everyday with the pain of the victims, but also and just as much, with the violence of the accusation.

Therefore, we are not the least legitimate persons to know how the dreadful spectacle of the oratorical one-upmanship and the folly it demonstrates can only lead to the discredit of just causes.

We would have wished not to have to remind this, but an accusation is never the proof of anything: otherwise it would suffice to hit with one’s truth to prove and condemn. It is less about believing or not believing a female plaintiff than about compelling oneself to refuse any probationary force to the sole prosecution: to presume the good faith of any woman declaring herself to be a victim of sexual abuse would amount to sacralizing arbitrarily her voice, in no case to “liberating” it.

Roman Polanski was the subject of several public accusations, among which only one judiciary complaint which led to charges: therefore, he is not guilty of what people reproach him for since the Samantha Geimer case. As for the latter, the only victim who was judicially recognized, she has called people many times to stop instrumentalizing her story, even affirming that: “when you refuse that a victim forgives and turns over a new leaf to satisfy your selfish need for hatred and punishment, you only harm her more profoundly.”

In her interview to Slate she added that “the media coverage around all this was so traumatizing that what Roman Polanski has done to me seems to fade away in comparison.” In the name of which liberation of speaking should we confiscate and repudiate hers?

This ceremony in tribute to the “big family of cinema,” where Roman Polanski was eventually more humiliated than awarded, will contribute to harm a little more the person who, in vain and for more than forty years, has tried to turn a new leaf of the story which in fact is not hers anymore. In the name of which imperative, of which victimary ideal, is this victim sacrificed?

It is urgent to stop considering prescription and the respect of the presumption of innocence as the instruments of impunity: in reality, they are the only efficient defense against arbitrariness, while any of us can become the victim of such arbitrariness in these deleterious times. There is no assumption that is more dangerous that the one stating that any memory is virtuous and any forgetting is reprehensible. Homère knew it well when he wrote “prescription forbids mortal humans to retain immortal hatred.”

Therefore, the worst alienation is not love but hatred, and we, criminal lawyers, know too well of the ravages it produces on the plaintiffs who, hoping to overcome their trauma by tying themselves up to their identity as victims, are in reality only delaying their calming that only comes with time.

It is erroneous to affirm that the judiciary system would display systemic violence towards women today, or that it would not consider sufficiently their voice.

On the contrary, we observe, no matter what our position is in the court hearing, that a worrying and redoubtable presumption of culpability invites itself too often when it comes to sexual offenses. Thus, it becomes more and more difficult to enforce the principle according which doubt must obstinately be beneficial to the defendant.

On 4 November 2019, Adèle Haenel declared to Mediapart: “Polanski’s situation is unfortunately an emblematic case because he is the representative of culture. (...) If the society itself was not so violent towards women (...), Polanski’s situation would not have such role.” It is a good illustration of the sacrifice of one man in the light of a cause which, consequently loses part of its legitimacy.

Tweet after Tweet, hashtags after hashtags, what we feel growing is truly alarming for any true democrat, and it is all the more alarming that we already perceive its harmful effect: the triumph of the public opinion’s court.

In one click and in the rather depraved indulging in one-upmanship, women do not hesitate anymore to proclaim themselves as victims to access a status which deduces the existence of already designated persecutors. Consequently, in the event that justice is invoked and disculpates them, the aforementioned persecutors will be doubly guilty of having avoided condemnation.

We are feminists but we do not recognize ourselves in this kind of feminism which establishes a contention between men and women on principle. Sopranos of the bar, we succeed each day in imposing a bit more our voice to tenor colleagues who will for sure end up getting used to it - after all, they themselves also wear the robe...

As women, we want to remain free to love and celebrate publicly the works and authors of our choice. Finally, as criminal lawyers, we will fight at every moment against all forms of arbitrary accusations which, almost mechanically, lead to widespread lynching.