His interventions are regularly controversial, to the point of being the subject of compilations on social networks. In the shows in which she participates, lawyer Sarah Saldmann regularly tests the limits of her profession’s freedom of expression. “They are extremely boring people. […] It is boring to go to dinner with a vegetarian, there is nothing worse, they graze on grass, they eat seeds… It’s hell for vegans, hell on earth!” declared this thirty-year-old on May 10, 2022 in The Big Mouthson RMC. Even, sometimes, insults: “These ecologists are starting to annoy us”, she choked on December 16, 2022. She regularly castigates the “assisted”, the “people who live on a drip of benefits, on a drip of helpers, who are sprawled on their sofa eating chips in front of the TV all day.”
Can a lawyer really say that? In a decree issued on December 22, 2023, the disciplinary council of the Paris Bar Association issued a reprimand against him, accompanied by a deprivation of membership of the council of the order for five years. “The lawyer’s freedom of expression does not authorize him to give his profession a violent, vulgar or cynical image,” it is explained. This decree, which lists an anthology of Mr. Saldmann’s most flowery declarations, has been available on the Paris Bar website since June. Disciplinary procedures, until now very discreet, are being handled more and more publicly by the council of the order. Faced with an increase in speeches in the media and on social networks by lawyers, the presidents of the bar are trying to remind people of the ethics of the profession.
A “pathological need to be seen”
“All these young people that no one knows and who go on the news channels to comment on all the issues…, annoys Pierre-Olivier Sur, former president of Paris. I think very badly of this practice. We feel the lawyers who want to make a name for themselves, to exist, to have a clientele It’s quite degrading.” Christian Charrière-Bournazel, former president of the National Council and Bar Associations and former president of Paris, comments: “The lawyer Stephen Hecquet (1919-1960) distinguished three types of lawyers: court lawyers, court lawyers, and lawyers on court There is a temptation for many to show themselves to the general public to make themselves known. This is not in itself an ethical violation. It all depends on how things are done. The indignation is less contained among criminal lawyer Philippe Sarda, also registered with the Paris bar. “Many suffer from a pathological need to be seen and recognized,” he scolds.
Gone are the days when it was customary for each lawyer to ask permission from their president before speaking publicly in the media. The council of the order was keen to preserve its smooth and respectable image down to the slightest interventions of its members. “But everything changed in 1986. It was said that the lawyer who appears publicly must inform the president of the bar. The latter can possibly tell him not to do so. The lawyer can then decide to speak in the media under his responsibility, even if it means responding to it before the disciplinary council”, details Christian Charrière-Bournazel. In 1987, in regular conflict with the president of Paris over his media coverage, the lawyer Jacques Vergès, notably defender of Klaus Barbie, had his photo taken naked in his bathtub, leafing through Paris Match. This first provocation will cause many others, allowing lawyers to express themselves more and more freely in the media.
Risks of suspension
Rules exist. Given during the bar’s ethics courses – the training of which now also extends to social networks – good practices are developed in the internal regulations of the Paris bar – an imposing document of more than 410 pages. In his practice, all lawyers must respect “the principles of honor, loyalty, equality and non-discrimination, disinterestedness, brotherhood, delicacy, moderation, and courtesy”. “These very clearly defined principles are the backbone of the profession. The lawyer’s freedom of expression is very broad, but within the limits of an ethics of which the presidents of the bar, prosecuting authorities, are the guarantors and which they must enforce”, explains Julie Couturier, president of the National Bar Council and former President of the Paris Bar.
The lawyer summoned to these disciplinary proceedings is exposed to penalties ranging from warning to dismissal, including reprimand, then ban from practicing for a maximum period of three years, with possibly a suspended sentence. . Fabrice Di Vizio, a lawyer who became known during the yellow vest crisis and his defense of the anti-vax movement, was for example the subject of disciplinary proceedings by the Paris bar. The bar council imposed a six-month suspended ban on him in November 2022 for having “failed to comply with the essential principles of the legal profession”, as well as a five-month ban on appearing before the court. order. He was notably accused of having made “vulgar”, “rude” and “offensive” comments on Cyril Hanouna’s show and on Twitter. The man is still a columnist for “Touche pas à mon poste”, where he also works alongside Sarah Saldmann.
Lack of media training
The example is symptomatic of a trend launched by 24-hour news channels. In this ecosystem where news items are often commented on, the lawyer’s perspective is in high demand, renowned as much for his legal expertise as for his articulate words. “Recently, for example, I was called by a programmer who insisted that I speak on a TV channel after the discovery of the body of Lina, the young woman who disappeared in September 2023, recalls Philippe Sarda. But I did not know not the file. The journalist told me about the discovery of the body. I was not going to intervene!” Lawyers thus choose to set limits: “I am here to give a legal explanation, explains Pierre-Olivier Sur. I absolutely forbid myself from intervening to comment on a trial or to give my opinion on lawyers. The line that lawyers colleagues should follow is simple: we do not comment on other people’s files.”
A sanitary cordon that they impose on themselves for their own affairs: “I went to Henri Leclerc’s school. When he had a publicized trial at the Assize Court, he had the habit of refusing to comment on the ongoing cases, observes Philippe Sarda, who worked alongside him. He sometimes held a press conference a few weeks after the start of the trial, but that’s all. A habit that some consider difficult to maintain today, like Randall Schwerdorffer: “In the 1980s and 1990s, a lawyer who appeared on TV was the exception. There was no slot for judicial broadcasts There were also no social networks, which induced less pressure, and less fear that the defense’s words would be erased in the event of silence. This lawyer found himself at the heart of a media storm after announcing live on television that his client, Jonathann Daval, had “accidentally caused the death of his wife”. “I have learned a lot since then. Before responding to the press, you have to take some time, not give in, get out of emotion. You also have to know how to say no,” he says, not without regretting a ” lack of media training within the profession. Media in which he now intervenes, notably on the set of Big Mouthson RMC.
The risks of TikTok
But the issue extends beyond traditional media. In September, the TikTok videos of Nadia El Bouroumi, lawyer for two of the accused in the Mazan rape trial, sparked an outcry within and outside the profession. So much so that the president of Avignon, where the trial is being held, issued a press release on September 23. He recalls that “the “ethical rules of the lawyer aim to preserve the dignity of the profession and the confidence of the litigant”, not without insisting on the fact that “the freedom of expression of the lawyer is fundamental in the exercise of defense rights”. The case of Avignon illustrates a procedure that is usually much more subdued. “Sanctions have been imposed because colleagues forget to exercise a certain amount of caution when they create content on the networks. Sometimes, we can see the names of clients, the contents of files…”, notes Laura Ben Kemoun, vice-president of the UJA.
The profession knows perfectly well that it is playing a balancing act. “There is a great temptation today among lawyers to communicate on the Internet, continues Me Charrière-Bournazel. The problem is delicate, because on the one hand there is the total freedom which has been conferred over the course of years, and on the other the ethical principles of honor and respect, to which he must permanently submit. Now unions, such as the Union of Young Lawyers, also provide training. To avoid going off the road, Charles Ohlgusser, lawyer at the Paris bar and member of the council of the order, repeats a well-known precept: “Communicate as if your president were looking over your shoulder.” Valid on both social networks and news channels.
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