Robert Badinter: The French minister who fought against a 'killer justice system'

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00 "Death is the justice that kills. I do not accept a justice that kills."

00:06 On September 17th 1981, Robert Bellante entered history with this speech.

00:12 "On behalf of the French Republic, I have the honour to ask the National Assembly to

00:18 abolish the death penalty in France."

00:23 At the time France's Justice Minister, he brought about the abolition of the country's

00:27 death penalty. It had been the fight of his life.

00:31 Bellante developed a thirst for justice whilst still a public school student in Paris, where

00:35 he was born in 1928 to a Jewish family of Moldovan origin.

00:40 His adolescence was marked by the death of his father, who was captured during the Nazi

00:44 occupation of France and killed in the Sobibor concentration camp in Poland. After studying

00:49 literature and law, he became a lawyer in Paris.

00:53 In 1972 would come a major turning point in his life, as he failed to spare his client

00:58 from the guillotine. Roger Bantam had been condemned for being an accomplice in the murder

01:03 of two hostages in a prison break.

01:09 Five years later, by then a committed activist, Bellante would succeed in saving child murderer

01:15 Patrick Henry from the death penalty.

01:17 As Justice Minister from 1981 to 1986, he was nicknamed the "murderer's lawyer" but

01:23 remained undaunted in his commitment to human rights.

01:29 While I was Justice Minister, I had very clear ideas about making the French justice system

01:34 more human and it was very unpopular.

01:40 During his mandate, he would reform France's use of solitary confinement, decriminalise

01:45 homosexuality and grant French litigants access to the European Court of Human Rights.

01:51 As Minister, he achieved the extradition of the Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie from Bolivia

01:55 to France, where he was found guilty of crimes against humanity during his time stationed

02:00 in occupied Lyon.

02:02 After leaving government in 1986, Bellante was named President of France's Constitutional

02:07 Council. With his wife, philosopher Elisabeth Bellante, he had three children.

02:13 As a senator from 1995 to 2011, he lived to see the abolition of the death penalty written

02:18 into the country's constitution, a fight for which he had committed himself to his last

02:23 breath.

Category

Transcript

Recommended