There are nine of them asking the question: can a lawyer, definitively condemned by the courts as is the case of Nicolas Sarkozy, still wear the dress? A group of lawyers contacted the Paris Attorney General on Tuesday, December 16, to request the opening of an ethics investigation targeting the former President of the Republic, considering in particular that his convictions infringe “to the essential principles” of the profession, reveals the mediaInformedinformation confirmed by theAFP.
“No, Nicolas Sarkozy can no longer embody the profession, he no longer has the right to be a lawyer”, believes Me Jérôme Karsenti. “We have a code of ethics which says that probity is part of our function”, adds the lawyer, member of the collective who contacted the Paris Attorney General. “Being criminally convicted for the first time is already an ethical breach. Being condemned several times and nothing being done… really, it’s distressing,” for its part, supports theAFP Me Jérôme Giusti, another member of the collective.
Nicolas Sarkozy, hat number R175, has been a lawyer at the Paris bar since 1981. He has been a member for almost 40 years of the firm Claude & Sarkozy, renamed Realyze in 2020. The ex-president was definitively convicted twice: for corruption and influence peddling in the wiretapping affair, also called Bismuth, and in the Bygmalion affair over the financing of his 2012 presidential campaign.
“We are victims as lawyers”
“The president of the bar can refer the matter to the disciplinary council but also to the general public prosecutor’s office which transmits the final criminal convictions to the Order so that the latter can take disciplinary action,” explains Me Christian Charrière-Bournazel, former President of the Paris Bar, regarding the request from his colleagues, of which he is not a member. It is then up to the Order to sanction or not. The range of penalties can go as far as disbarment, although no text provides that a criminal conviction de facto leads to exclusion.
“The Attorney General would have taken it up anyway,” adds the former lawyer, according to whom “it is essential that Nicolas Sarkozy can appear with assistance during a hearing of the Disciplinary Council.”
Last October, after the conviction at first instance of Nicolas Sarkozy in the Libyan affair, the same lawyers had already filed a complaint against their colleague, notably for “contempt of magistrates” after comments from the former president declaring that he “would not bend in the face of lies, conspiracy, insult” and facing practices “if contrary to the rule of law”.
However, recalled the lawyers at the origin of the complaint, according to the code of ethics, a lawyer, if he enjoys “full freedom of expression […] must refrain from denigrating the rule of law or making general degrading remarks about justice.” Thus, according to Me Jérôme Giusti, “We consider ourselves victims as lawyers. Maintaining Nicolas Sarkozy is an attack on the Paris bar and our profession.”
