The charge of lawyer Hervé Temime against transparency: "No defense without secrecy"

INTERVIEW

"These are values ​​that I place, as a lawyer but also in a personal capacity, practically above all the others": on Europe 1, Thursday noon, Me Hervé Temime came to discuss his latest book,

(with journalist Marie -Laure Delorme, published by Gallimard).

As its name suggests, this work is a plea against transparency which, according to the famous criminal lawyer, has invaded the public sphere, to the point of polluting the functioning of justice.

He explains it at the microphone of Patrick Cohen.

Secrecy, "ally of justice"

"It is an essential and cardinal value", advances the tenor of the bar, which advises among others Bernard Tapie, Roman Polanski, Gérard Depardieu, Ladj Ly or the Servier laboratories.

"There is no legal profession or defense without absolute secrecy. It is the beginning of the relationship between someone who needs a lawyer and their lawyer."

The lawyer takes the example of a former client who confessed to him that he was paid to assassinate a personality: "He gives me the name of the person he must kill, it's horrible", he says.

"There, I am faced with a terrible case of conscience because I have no right to say anything. But if this person had been killed, the respect for secrecy would have given me a good leg. So I called. Henri Leclerc, already a kind of conscience for all of us. He said to me 'Listen, you have only one thing to do, and that is to write down what happened, to drop it off at the president's office and you cannot say nothing '. And I said nothing. I respected the secret, death in the soul. "

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For Me Hervé Temime, secrecy is above all "the ally of justice": "It is a right, obviously, for the person who is defended, but it is a value which defends the general interest of justice , far superior to special interests. Imagine receiving the confidences of a victim who tells me absolutely terrifying details of her privacy, of her life. Am I allowed to violate her secret? No. that she can authorize me to do so? No. What interest am I protecting by not doing so? His interest, yes, but the best interests of justice. "

"Ambiguous relationship" with the truth

Is this visceral attachment to secrecy in the world of justice accompanied by a lesser emphasis on the equally broad notion of truth?

"My relation to the truth is an extremely ambiguous relation, I admit, because the lawyer does not have to seek the truth and most lawyers say that it does not concern them. I would tell you that 'she interests me of course, but my relationship to her is not what guides my profession. "

If I am looking for the truth, it is because I want to judge you. And if I defend you, I don't have to judge

This is the reason why one of the most requested lawyers in France perceives his vocation as "sulphurous and fascinating".

"If I defend you and I seek the truth, it is because I want to judge you. And if I defend you, I do not have to judge. On the contrary, I have to be your last judge. a lot of people who are incapable of this. "

However, in order to be a lawyer, do you have to "lack virtue"?

"No, on the contrary, because I believe that one must have a particular integrity to be capable of this exercise", answers Me Hervé Temime.

What "secret" in front of journalists?

In their daily lives, lawyers often rub shoulders with journalists who follow legal cases.

"We do not have the same function at all but journalists have a perfectly protected secret of sources. It is perfectly necessary", analyzes Me Hervé Temime, who brings a downside.

"Me, I ask that the professional secrecy of lawyers be as well respected as the secrecy of sources", he asks, insisting on the "heavy responsibility" of journalists to publish, or not, information on cases In progress.

To illustrate his point, Me Hervé Temime evokes a case concerning one of his clients, Roman Polanski, targeted by "an investigation of the

". "When we publish under these conditions, we must make an irreproachable investigation", he insists about this article which does not date, but which seems to concern the accusations of Valentine Monnier, made public in November last in everyday life. "We must leave the least part in doubt, because we know that there will be no possible police or judicial investigations in prescribed cases. There, the responsibility of journalists is enormous because they change their minds. in a way like police officers and judges, with an opinion which is very difficult to challenge the prosecution. "