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Controversy about the future defender of rights

Eric Molinié, new President of the dump, wishes that his institution remains an "independent subsidiary" defender of rights. 

AFP PHOTO BERTRAND LANGLOIS

Programmed since 2008, the creation of a great defender of individual rights should be consensual. It has become very controversial. Political history of a drama away to be played.

This January 11, the National Assembly examines the proposed creation of the public defender of rights. It was to be a mere formality. It is nothing. The idea of creating an institution to better defend individual freedoms in France was proposed by the Balladur Committee on reform of the Constitution, and in particular one of its members, Jack Lang. However, in July 2008, Act resulting had committed the choice of the new body contours for a second text.

Too old

MEPs decided on Tuesday in the Committee that the function of public defender of rights cannot be undercut by a person having "less than 68 years on the day of his appointment". 

This provision excludes de facto former Ministers Bernard Kouchner (born November 1, 1939) and Jack Lang (born 2 September 1939), two personalities often cited for this position.

Suddenly, the definition of this territory became a very political subject. Power is suspected, sometimes rightly so, to try to get rid of institutions it considers bulky basis in the new entity. Fiscal year, which should be consensual, turned into singular squabbling-shop of the majority, as evidenced by its parliamentary, very turbulent history.

Act I: the Senate, June 2010

The project consists of the Médiateur de la République (born 1973), defender of children (2000) and the National Commission of ethics of security (NSDC, 2000). Starting in 2009, defender of children, Dominique Versini, former Minister of Jean-Pierre Raffarin, protested: "much less children and parents address an institution whose name is not immediately explicit." Versini added that counterparts are autonomous in 37 European countries. And 18 of the 27 European Union.

Dominique Versini children activist arrives at the Elysee Palace to President Nicolas Sarkozy his report "adolescents in suffering, a plea for a genuine support", 20 November 2007 in Paris.

AFP PHOTO / ERIC FEFERBERG

Defender arguments make fly of the Senators deemed sensitive to everything that concerns the civil liberties. So while 27 of them, Member of the UMP groups and centrist Union, filed an amendment safeguarding

the body. Do vote. But the next day, the Elysee tape fists on the table and immediately Gets a second vote otherwise. "I still not understood why the Government imposed us this sudden reversal", entrusts Hugues Portelli, Senator of the Val-, and one elected UMP to refuse turn snagging. "I've paid my independence," says Versini, where I expressed on justice for minors or because of my criticism about the presence of children of foreigners in detention centres.

Before the defender of children, the dump had suffered a similar treatment. In April 2010, the high authority against discrimination and for equality, born in 2005, was added to the project. His struggles, it is true, have annoyed the power or large corporations, like BNP Paribas, Airbus, etc., when she accused of discrimination in respect of an employee or an employee.

Newly appointed head of the pile, the UMP Jeannette Bougrab promised, in Le Monde: "I will fight like a savage to save this institution." Bougrab... managed his own exfiltration, becoming State Secretary no later than five months.

Act II: National Assembly, January 2011

Fall, the controversy is relaunched by improbable tandem, Christian Vanneste (UMP MP Northern), renowned for its very conservative positions, and René Dosière (PS, Aisne). Two elected officials then publish a report on 42 independent administrative authorities which contradicts the Government project: they propose to consolidate the NSDC and the Comptroller General of the places of deprivation of liberty outside of the perimeter of the public defender of rights. "Because both perform the" "prisons monitoring", justifies Vanneste. Example: when an inmate said victim of malfunction of a prison, putting subject a supervisor, this falls within the NSDC, if not the Comptroller General. And, therefore, sometimes both.

"I applaud the quality of the works of Messrs. Vanneste and Dosière, and I share conclusions in their excellent report", launches, November 30, garde des Sceaux, Michel Mercier, the National Assembly. Enthusiasm does not extend to support the proposed merger of two elected officials, since the NSDC is maintained in the defender of rights...

To the Comptroller General, it will be absorbed in 2014, the term of Office of its current head, Jean-Marie Delarue. And this against the opinion of the national consultative Commission for the rights of man and of the Committee against torture of Nations United, favorable to maintaining the autonomy of this institution. "Only motivation of the UMP majority, is to remove institutions inconvenient power", says Jean-Jacques Urvoas, MP (PS) of Finistère. By involving the police for the guards to view malicious or unjustified searches in body, the NSDC has indeed strongly irritated the hierarchs and trade unionists of the Ministry of the Interior.

Who chooses the defender of rights, essential decision given the extent of its area of jurisdiction? In several European countries, this power belongs to the Parliament, a majority of three-fifths. French project provides the reverse: rights defender will be appointed by the President of the Republic, except the three-fifths of parliamentary opposition.

"Executive is therefore not much, and, moreover, he missed an opportunity to comply with the spirit of the institutional reform of 2008, intended to give more power to representatives of the nation", critical Vanneste. It therefore proposes that affiliate future defender of rights, they are elected by three-fifths of the Parliament. In the same spirit, the new President of the dump, Eric Molinié, wishes his institution to be an "independent subsidiary"

President of the dump, Eric Molinié, wishes that his institution is an "independent subsidiary" defender of rights. "It is an oxymoron, a straying," reply Pierre Morel-A-L'Huissier, MP (UMP) of Lozère and rapporteur of the project to the National Assembly. "Five assistants will be appointed by the defender of rights, without consulting the Parliament, otherwise it will give rise to a monster with five heads, source of wild rice."

Act III: Second reading, spring

If project is adopted by the majority in the State, the third part of the coin should play in the spring, second reading by Parliament. It looks rough. Defender of children reduces to a simple "collaborator" of the public defender of rights, "without being able to own", in the words of the garde des Sceaux: the pill will be difficult to swallow to the Senate after the battle they were conducted in June and the dictates the Elysée was imposed.

Definitively adopted project will remain the choice of the captain. "The quality of the institution will depend from its leader," loose Pierre Morel-A-L'Huissier. Chancery recognizes that the challenge is crucial: he must find a figure of high-level, moral authority. "A profile transcourants, neither advocate nor ideologue, who satisfies the opposition", said Christian Vanneste. For a long time, only Jack Lang and Bernard Kouchner was quoted. First repeats that he is not interested and beginning to be heard. The latter is not considered credible. Suddenly, parliamentarians from the majority grows the candidacy of MP (UMP) Françoise de Panafieu, future victim of two Parisian electoral fusion

. Visibly, power has not (yet?) found its Robert Badinter or its Simone Veil.