Robert Badinter
| Robert Badinter | |
|---|---|
Robert Badinter during a demonstration against the death penalty in Paris, on 3 February 2007
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| French Senator from Hauts-de-Seine | |
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In office 24 September 1995 – 25 September 2011 |
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| President of the Constitutional Council of France | |
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In office 19 February 1986 – March 1995 |
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| President | François Mitterrand |
| Preceded by | Daniel Mayer |
| Succeeded by | Roland Dumas |
| French Minister of Justice | |
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In office 23 June 1981 – 19 February 1986 |
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| President | François Mitterrand |
| Prime Minister | Pierre Mauroy |
| Preceded by | Maurice Faure |
| Succeeded by | Michel Crépeau |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
30 March 1928 Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
| Political party | French Socialist Party |
| Spouse(s) | Élisabeth Badinter |
| Children | 3 |
| Occupation | Lawyer, professor, politician, activist |
Robert Badinter (French: [badɛ̃tɛʁ]; born 30 March 1928) is a French criminal lawyer, university professor, politician and activist against the death penalty, the abolition of which he successfully sponsored in Parliament in 1981. A member of the Socialist Party (PS), he served as Minister of Justice and then President of the Constitutional Council under François Mitterrand.
In 1965, along with Jean-Denis Bredin, Badinter founded the law firm Badinter, Bredin et partenaires (now known as Bredin Prat), where he practised until 1981. Badinter's struggle against the death penalty began after Roger Bontems's execution, on 28 November 1972. Along with Claude Buffet, Bontems had taken a prison guard and a nurse hostage during the 1971 revolt in Clairvaux Prison. While the police were storming the building, Buffet slit the hostages' throats. Badinter was the lawyer for Bontems, and although it was established during the trial that Buffet alone was the murderer, the jury sentenced both men to death. Applying the death penalty to the person who had not committed the killing outraged Badinter to the point that he dedicated himself to the abolition of the death penalty.
In this context, and as a lawyer, he agreed to defend Patrick Henry. In January 1976, 8-year-old Philipe Bertrand was kidnapped. Henry was suspected very soon, but released because of a lack of proof. He gave interviews on television, saying that those who kidnapped and killed children deserved death. A few days later, he was again arrested, and shown Bertrand's corpse hidden in a blanket under his bed. Badinter and Robert Bocquillon defended Henry, making a case not in favour of Henry, but against the death penalty. Henry was sentenced to life imprisonment but paroled in 2001.
The death penalty was still applied in France on a number of occasions (three people were executed between 1976 and 1981), but it became a matter of considerable public concern.
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Wikipedia