Robert Badinter

Capital punishment

In this context, he agreed to defend Patrick Henry. In January 1976, eight-year-old Philippe Bertrand was kidnapped. Henry was soon picked up as a suspect, but released because of a lack of evidence. He gave interviews on television, saying that those who kidnapped and killed children deserved death. A few days later, he was arrested again and shown Bertrand's corpse hidden in a blanket under his bed. Badinter and Robert Bocquillon defended Henry, making the case not about Henry's guilt, but against a death sentence. Henry was sentenced to life imprisonment and died months after a compassionate release from prison in 2017 (after receiving parole in 2001, revoked in 2002). The lenient verdict came as a shock, with several publications having already called the outcome as a virtual certainty for execution; according to speculative sources, the critical vote on the death sentence failing by a seven-to-five vote majority. The case of Jerome Carrein, condemned 15 days after Henry's sentence for the murder of a child, was widely dubbed the "revenge of the guillotine". Until the execution of Gary Gilmore in Utah on 17 January, three days before Henry's verdict, France was the only Western liberal democracy actively performing executions.

Despite president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's modernist outlook and stated opposition to the guillotine, a further three executions took place during this period, of Christian Ranucci in July 1976, Carrein in June 1977, and Hamida Djandoubi in September 1977. Badinter took no part in arguing either case. However, 63% of French voters supported keeping the death penalty at the time it was abolished. In 1980-81, Badinter defended Philippe Maurice, whose sentence of death was confirmed by the superior court in March 1981, weeks before the election of abolitionist François Mitterrand to President. A further eight sentences of death were issued before the bill of abolition was passed by the French parliament in September (the last only two days before the Senate voted) but none reached stage of execution and were converted by the abolition act. Maurice's sentence, after lobbying from Badinter, was commuted by Mitterrand on May 25, among Mitterrand's first acts as president.

Ministerial mandate (1981–1986)

In 1981, François Mitterrand, a self-professed opponent of the death penalty, was elected president and Badinter was appointed as Minister of Justice. Among his first actions was to introduce a bill to Parliament proposing the abolition of the death penalty for all crimes, both civilian and military. The bill was passed by the Senate after heated debate on 30 September 1981. On 9 October the law was officially enacted, ending capital punishment in France.

During his mandate, he also helped abolish "juridictions d'exception" ("special courts"), such as the Cour de Sûreté de l'État ("State Security Court") and the military courts, worked to make conditions in French prisons more humane, and improved the rights of victims of crime. Badinter also played a key role in equalizing France’s age of consent for gay sex, which previously had been set at 21 years (as opposed to 15 for heterosexual sex.)

During the trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, whose crimes included authorizing the deportation of thousands of Jews—including Badinter’s father, Simon—to extermination camps, Badinter insisted that Barbie be housed at the Montluc prison, where Barbie himself had ordered the torture and killing of detainees. Barbie had previously been sentenced to death in absentia, but the abolition of the death penalty in France meant that he received a life sentence instead, which Badinter approved of, describing the sentence as “a true victory for civilization.”

He remained a minister until February 1986.

1986–2024

From March 1986 to March 1995, he was president of the French Constitutional Council. From 1995 to 2011, he served as a senator, representing the Hauts-de-Seine département.

In 1989, he participated in an edition of the Antenne 2 talk show Apostrophes devoted to human rights, together with the 14th Dalai Lama. Discussing the disappearance of Tibetan culture from Tibet, Badinter used the term "cultural genocide". He praised the example of Tibetan nonviolent resistance. Badinter met with the Dalai Lama many times, in particular in 1998 when he greeted him as the "Champion of Human Rights", and again in 2008.

In 1991, Badinter was appointed by the Council of Ministers of the European Community as a member of the Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia. He was elected as president of the commission by the four other members, all presidents of constitutional courts in the European Community. The Arbitration Commission has rendered eleven pieces of advice regarding "major legal questions" arising from the split of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Badinter was the first president of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) following its creation in 1995; he served in that position until 2013.

Badinter opposed the accession of Turkey to the European Union, on the grounds that Turkey might not be able to follow the rules of the Union. He was also concerned about the nation's location, saying: "We'll have, we Europeans, common borders with Georgia, Armenia, Iran, Iraq and Syria. I am asking you: What justifies our common borders with these countries? What justifies that we'd get involved in the most dangerous areas of the world?"

As a head of the Arbitration Commission, he gained high respect among Macedonians and other ethnic groups in the Republic of Macedonia because he recommended "that the use of the name 'Macedonia' cannot therefore imply any territorial claim against another State". He supported full recognition of the Republic in 1992. He was involved in drafting the so-called Ohrid Agreement in the Republic of Macedonia. This agreement was based on the principle that ethnic-related proposals passed by the national assembly (and later to be applied to actions of city councils and other local government bodies) should be supported by a double majority of both Macedonian and Albanian ethnic groups. This is often called the "Badinter principle".

In 2009, Badinter expressed dismay at the Pope's lifting of the excommunication of controversial English Catholic bishop Richard Williamson, who had expressed Holocaust denial and was illegally consecrated a bishop. The Pope reactivated the excommunication later.

Badinter was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2009.

World Justice Project

Badinter served as an Honorary Co-Chair for the World Justice Project. It works to lead a global, multidisciplinary effort to strengthen the rule of law for the development of communities of opportunity and equity.

Case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

At the start of the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011, in which the IMF Managing Director was accused of rape and was arrested by the police in New York City, Robert Badinter reacted by saying to France Inter that he was outraged by the "media killing" and denounced the "failure of an entire system" inherent in the perp walk of Strauss-Kahn, a suspect, but also of the media judging an assumed culprit's guilt for charges that had not initiated a trial, and which were eventually dismissed. Strauss-Kahn had been a favoured Socialist candidate for the presidential election the following April, but dropped all pretences of running after his arrest.

Summary of political career

Political appointments:

President of the Constitutional Council: 1986–1995.

Minister of Justice: 1981–1986 (resigned upon appointment as president of the Constitutional Council).

Elected office:

Senator for Hauts-de-Seine: 1995–2011. Elected in 1995, reelected in 2004.