Robert Lecourt

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Robert Lecourt

Robert Lecourt (born September 19, 1908 in Pavilly , Seine-Maritime department , † August 9, 2004 in Boulogne-Billancourt , Hauts-de-Seine department ) was a French lawyer and politician of the Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP), who between 1946 and was a member of the National Assembly in 1959 and was Minister of Justice in 1948, 1949 and 1957 and 1958 . He was later Minister of State in the Debre cabinet between 1959 and 1961 .

In 1962 Lecourt was appointed judge at the European Court of Justice , of which he was president between 1967 and 1976. His last position was between 1980 and 1989 as a judge at the Conseil constitutionnel , the constitutional court of France.

Life

Studies, lawyer and beginning of a political career

Lecourt, son of a businessman, completed his school education at the Pensionnat Jean-Baptiste-de-La-Salle de Rouen and then began studying law at the University of Caen . After completing his studies and obtaining a doctorate in law with a dissertation on “The legal nature of the action in restoration. A study of the French jurisprudence " ( " La nature juridique de l'action en réintégrande, étude de la jurisprudence française ") he started working as a lawyer in Rouen in 1931 , but in 1932 he switched to the Court of Appeal (Cour d ' appel) in Paris .

In addition, Lecourt, a staunch Catholic , began his political career when he was accepted by Jean Raymond-Laurent in 1934 into the Fédération des Jeunesses Démocrates Populaires (FJDP), the youth organization of the Parti démocrate populaire (PDP). In 1936 he became General Secretary of the FJDP and held this position until the beginning of the Second World War in 1939. In 1936 he also became a member of the board of directors of the PDP and wrote articles for the party newspaper L'Aube , in which he took a critical stance on the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938.

Second World War

Member of the Resistance and the Liberation of Paris

As an opponent of National Socialism , Lecourt was involved in the Resistance movement , of which he had been a member since 1942. After the liberation of Paris in August 1944, he became a member of the Provisional Consultative Assembly (Assemblée consultative provisoire) in Paris for the Resistance and was appointed to the Committee on Prisoners and Deportees and the Judiciary Committee. During this period he was the author of a resolution calling for full compensation for war damage and another resolution calling for electoral legislation to be changed to ensure proportional representation.

On October 28, 1944, he took part in a general debate on general government policy, in which he called for the restoration of the world to begin immediately after winning the war, for the people, not for their exploitation. He pointed out that the future of France would depend on the harmony of three elements: a legitimate government, respect for human rights and a resistance that saw itself not as a large party, but as an intermediary between the parties and thus ultimately public opinion. French politics should be returned to legality and democracy as soon as possible. He also proposed at least provisional elections because of the large number of prisoners. The Resistance should play an important role in preparing for the elections.

The debates on the judiciary in the Consultative Assembly

During a debate on February 21, 1945 on the work of the Commission d'Épuration to clean up the state apparatus, he dealt with the removal of the collaborators in order to rebuild the country. One of the difficulties also lay in cleaning up the judiciary. He stated that the purge was radical and feared that France would end up with only one examining magistrate while all other disfellowshipped lawyers would defend Philippe Pétain and his Vichy regime . Given that it would take five years to train judges, Lecourt thought it was careful to keep judges who had collaborated with the Vichy regime and the German Reich in the judicial service. He saw himself as a lawyer at the appellate court, for whom the rights of the defense must be respected.

On March 15, 1945, Lecourt took part in another debate about the lifting of expropriations by the enemy. He pointed out that the law made a distinction between expropriations in which the expropriated person would have given consent and those in which there was no consent. From his point of view, the latter should be null and void, although the reality was definitely more complex. However, there should be no privileging of dispossessed at the expense of other war victims. He also expressed the hope that the state would not have to pay for compensation.

He also took part on July 25, 1945 in the debate on the election of a Constituent Assembly. He spoke out clearly in favor of a new constitution, since the constitution of 1875 had died after the constitutional law of the Vichy regime of July 10, 1940 ('la constitution de 1875 est morte le 10 juillet 1940'). The ministers' responsibility should be combined with a concern for stability. For the procedure, he proposed a democratic referendum on the basis of Article 6 of the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights of August 26, 1789 ((Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen)) .

Fourth republic

Member of the Constituent Assemblies

Lecourt, who, alongside Georges Bidault, was one of the founders of the Mouvement républicain populaire (MRP) in 1944 , ran for the MRP in the second constituency of the Seine department in the elections on October 21, 1945 for a seat in the Constituent Assembly (Assemblée Constituante) . With 133,702 of the 443,058 votes cast, the MRP was way ahead of the list of the Parti communiste français (PCF) and won four seats. Lecourt then became a member of the Justice Committee (Commission de la justice) and demanded in a meeting on January 17, 1946 the admission of women to the judicial office.

In the election of a new constituent assembly on June 2, 1946, the MRP was behind the list of the Parti républicain de la liberté (PRL) cited by Joseph Denais and this time won two seats with 107,796 of the 452,255 votes cast. He then became a member of the Judiciary Committee again and took part in the debates on the constitution of October 13, 1946 , which came about after a compromise between the three major parties MRP, Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO) and PCF and after its adoption in led to a referendum on the establishment of the Fourth French Republic on October 21, 1946.

Elected member of the National Assembly in 1946

In the elections for the first National Assembly of the Fourth Republic, which took place on November 10, 1946, the list cited by Lecourt again came second in the second constituency of the Seine department with 109,407 of the 452,158 votes cast and this time it was able to provide three MPs. During this first legislative period, he became a member of the Administrative Reform Committee (Commission de la réforme administrative) and the Finance Committee (Commission des finances) . On February 11, 1947, he was instrumental in a law regulating pensions for divorced women. Since Lecourt was initially not a member of the government, he took over the role of chairman of the parliamentary group of the MRP.

Minister of Justice

On July 26, 1948, Lecourt was appointed by Prime Minister André Marie as keeper of the seal (Garde des Sceaux) and Minister of Justice (Ministre de la Justice) in his government and remained in this office until August 28, 1948. He then took over these offices in the second government of Prime Minister Robert Schuman until his resignation on September 7, 1948 after only two days in office. Lecourt was then commissioned by President Vincent Auriol to hold talks on the continuation of the government, as he did not want to accept the resignation of the government.

After the resignation of André Marie, Lecourt took over again in the first government of Prime Minister Henri Queuille on February 13, 1949, the offices of Keeper of the Seal and Minister of Justice as well as Vice-Prime Minister (Vice-President du Conseil) . In these functions, he presented numerous draft laws, such as the reform of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Code d'instruction criminelle) and, on February 24, 1949, repealing a law of June 26, 1949 on the creation of attestation certificates. On July 31, 1949, the judicial courts (Cour de justice) created on June 26, 1944 were dissolved and the proceedings pending there were handed over to the military tribunals. His amnesty law, which was presented to the Council of Ministers in June 1949, led to extensive discussions, so that on June 29, 1949 he presented an amended draft. Prime Minister Queuille then commissioned him to draft a law for returnees.

The Joanovici affair and leaving the government

As a result, Vincent Badie, MP from the Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste (RRRS), asked the Minister of Justice to make a statement in the case of Joseph Joanovici , who had worked with both the German occupying power and the French resistance movement and for this 1949 was sentenced to a prison term. It turned out that in 1944 Lecourt had written a letter for the Resistance in favor of a man named Spass, who was actually Joanovici. Badie then asked the government to provide the reasons for the long duration of the Joanovici trial and the letter. Lecourt referred to the war-related situation and internal struggles.

After Georges Bidault succeeded Queuilles as Prime Minister on October 28, 1949, Lecourt resigned as Minister of Justice from the Ministry on Place Vendôme and instead took over again as chairman of the MRP faction in the National Assembly.

Re-election as a member of the National Assembly in 1951

In the elections to the National Assembly on June 17, 1961, the MRP list, headed by Lecourt, lost two of its three seats in the second constituency of the Seine department. The list of MRP totaled 26,511 of the 416,592 votes votes behind the lists of the Gaullist Rally of the French People (RPF), the PCF, the Rassemblement the gauches républicaines (RGR) and the SFIO back and was almost equal to that of Jacques Isorni listed List of the Center national des indépendants et paysans (CNIP).

After his election, Lecourt was again a member of the Finance Committee and was also spokesman for the MRP Group on Constitutional Law. During this time he proposed on March 27, 1952, to limit the number of committee members to 32 in order to simplify the work of the National Assembly in the Palais Bourbon . On December 22, 1952, he announced that the MRP would not take part in a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Antoine Pinay , and on May 6, 1953 he represented the MRP in the debate about the new Prime Minister René Mayer . In the following period he dealt with questions about inflation, the difficulties in housing construction, but also about the European Defense Community (EVG). In 1953 he spoke out in the debates against Paul Reynaud and Pierre Mendès France as candidates for the office of Prime Minister. In a debate on November 27, 1953, he spoke out in favor of a supranational Europe. He was one of the most important critics of the government of Prime Minister Mendès France and was instrumental in his removal on February 5, 1955.

In the government presented by Christian Pineau on February 18, 1955 , Lecourt was to take over the office of Minister for National Defense. This did not happen, however, because the government proposed by Pineau was rejected by the National Assembly with 312 to 268 votes and instead Edgar Faure became Prime Minister for the second time on February 23, 1955. This renewed constitutional crisis led Lecourt to point out the need for a constitutional amendment and to submit a number of proposals.

Re-elected in 1956 and Minister of Justice from 1957 to 1958

In the elections to the National Assembly, the list of the MRP cited by Lecourt only won 20,274 of the 491,457 votes cast in the second constituency of the Seine department and thus only won one seat that he himself occupied. He was again chairman of the MRP group. In this capacity he advocated negotiations with the Holy See on the issue of school education. On March 8, 1956, Prime Minister Guy Mollet agreed to such negotiations, which Lecourt had at a meeting on April 2, 1955 with Pope Pius XII. and the Pro-State Secretary for Extraordinary Church Affairs, Domenico Cardinal Tardini .

On November 6, 1957, Lecourt was again appointed by Prime Minister Félix Gaillard to keep the seal and minister of justice in his government . He also held these offices in the subsequent government of Prime Minister Pierre Pflimlin until May 31, 1958. Here he continued his efforts to reform the constitution.

Fifth Republic

Minister in the Debre cabinet

In the elections for the first National Assembly of the Fifth French Republic, founded on October 5, 1958, on November 30, 1958, Lecourt ran in the Hautes-Alpes department for the Républicains populaires et center démocratique, which is closely related to the MRP, and was again a member of the National Assembly.

However, he renounced this mandate on February 8, 1959 after he had been appointed a month earlier on January 8, 1959 by Prime Minister Michel Debré as Minister of State (Ministre d'État) in his cabinet . As such, he was from March 27, 1959 to February 5, 1960 Minister responsible for cooperation (Ministre d'État, chargé de la coopération) and then from February 5, 1960 to August 24, 1961 Minister responsible for the Sahara as well as for the overseas territories (Ministre d'État, chargé du Sahara, des TOM et DOM) . After his resignation, Louis Jacquinot succeeded him in these offices.

European Court of Justice and Conseil constitutionnel

On May 18, 1962, Lecourt was appointed judge at the European Court of Justice to succeed Jacques Rueff . He worked there until October 25, 1976 and was then replaced by Adolphe Touffait . During this time he also succeeded Charles Léon Hammes as President of the European Court of Justice on October 10, 1967 , making him the first and so far only Frenchman in this position. He also held the office of President of the European Court of Justice until October 25, 1976 and was then replaced by Hans Kutscher .

Most recently, Lecourt was appointed a member of the Conseil constitutionnel in 1980 on the proposal of Senate President Alain Poher to succeed Paul Coste-Floret . He was a member of the Constitutional Court for nine years until 1989, when he was replaced by Jean Cabannes .

For his many years of service he was commander of the Legion of Honor and bearer of the Croix de guerre .

Publications

  • La Réintégrande et les Actions possessoires , 1931
  • Manuel de la responsabilité des architectes et entrepreneurs , 1936
  • Lutte contre le proxénétisme , 1949
  • Les pessimistes ont-ils raison? , 1950
  • La crise de l'Etat , 1955
  • Le Juge devant le Marché commun , 1970
  • L'Europe des juges , 1976
  • Entre l'Eglise et l'Etat. Concorde sans concordat, 1952-1957 , 1978

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Centrisme et démocratie-chrétienne en France: le Parti démocrate populaire des origines au MRP, 1919-1944 , 1990, ISBN 2-85944-182-4 , pp. 59, 309 ff.
  2. ↑ Bruno Béthouart: Des syndicalistes chrétiens en politique, 1944-1962: de la Liberation à la Ve République , 1999, ISBN 2-85939-579-2 , p. 131 and others
  3. ↑ Bernard Ménager: Guy Mollet: un camarade en république , Volume 2, 1987, ISBN 2-85939-335-8 , p. 403 ff.
  4. ^ Debré cabinet
  5. ↑ Miguel Maduro, Loic Azoulai (editor): The Past and Future of EU Law: The Classics of EU Law Revisited on the 50th Anniversary of the Rome Treaty , 2010, ISBN 1-84731-563-1 , p. 9 and others
  6. ^ Antoine Vauchez: Brokering Europe , 2015, ISBN 1-10704-236-4 , pp. 54, 142
personal data
SURNAME Lecourt, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French judge and politician (MRP), member of the National Assembly
DATE OF BIRTH September 19, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Pavilly , Seine-Maritime department
DATE OF DEATH August 9, 2004
Place of death Boulogne-Billancourt , Hauts-de-Seine department