Sects: Immunity, Impunity, Anti-Sect Action — a Tailor-Made Law? A CICNS Clip

This short campaign clip was produced by the CICNS (Centre d’Information et de Conseil des Nouvelles Spiritualités), a French association that documents and contests the treatment of spiritual minorities in France. Published in January 2009, it responds to the law of 14 November 2008, which granted relative immunity to witnesses heard by parliamentary commissions of inquiry. Weaving together excerpts from the National Assembly debate of 3 April 2008 and from the LCI programme « Questions d’actu » of 21 February 2008, the clip argues that the new law entrenches the impunity of the parliamentary anti-sect commissions of inquiry and of the testimony they put forward. Among the interventions it quotes are those of deputies Jean-Luc Warsmann and Jean-Jacques Urvoas, voicing concern that commissions of inquiry could be instrumentalised.

CICNS clip. (English translation of the clip published on the CICNS YouTube channel on 9 January 2009. The French transcript was machine-transcribed from the video and cleaned before translation; passages the machine could not reliably hear are marked [inaudible].)

[Interviewer]: In November 2008, in an exceptional consensus, the National Assembly adopted a law protecting witnesses heard by a parliamentary commission of inquiry. A law whose purpose and impartiality are highly debatable. A brief look back.

Thursday 3 April 2008, National Assembly, ordinary session of Parliament. Discussion of what was, at that point, a legislative proposal. Two significant excerpts. Intervention by the deputy Jean-Luc Warsmann.

[Voice]: If, by granting witnesses the protection of a relative immunity, we strengthen our way of working, we increase at the same time the risks of our commissions of inquiry being instrumentalised — notably by witnesses whom we have summoned and who would use them as a platform, one they might be tempted to use with ill intent, in order to settle scores.

[Interviewer]: Second excerpt. Remarks made by Jean-Jacques Urvoas.

[Voice]: Being a novice, my remarks will necessarily be cautious. The fact remains that I am troubled by the exchanges we have just had, and by the focus on a single type of commission of inquiry. Indeed, the discussions all revolve around a subject that is nowhere announced in the texts of the future law: the fight against sects.

[Interviewer]: The defenders of the bill are, moreover, for the most part long-standing anti-sect activists. The beginning of an explanation with this excerpt from the programme « Questions d’actu », broadcast by LCI on 21 February 2008.

[Voice]: When I testified before the parliamentary commission of inquiry on “sects and minors” chaired by Mr Fenech, prosecutions followed immediately afterwards. I was sued for defamation. So, on that point, we have a legislative proposal from the president of the National Assembly, Mr Accoyer, who wants to modify the functioning of the commissions of inquiry so that the witnesses summoned by the commissions of inquiry benefit from…

[Interviewer]: Many of the testimonies put forward by the three parliamentary commissions of inquiry on sects have been attacked for defamation. Maître Laurent Hincker represented a spiritual movement in a trial that saw the conviction of a certain Michel Gilbert for defamatory statements against that movement…

[Voice]: 17th correctional chamber: Mr Michel Gilbert arrives, and he is told, “Sir, you said this, this and this — that a sect had supposedly taken your children away; so what tangible evidence do you have?” In fact, he had none; it was utterly mad, it was nothing but lies. This is to show you the point of manipulation and instrumentalisation we have now reached in France today.

And this in complete impunity, because this same Michel Gilbert — convicted, convicted, convicted by the 17th correctional chamber, and I remind you that someone convicted under criminal law is called an offender — appealed, and the conviction was upheld by the court of appeal. This same Michel Gilbert was heard again by Mr Fenech during the third parliamentary commission on children, a year ago, and said exactly the same thing all over again.

[Interviewer]: This testimony, but also the lack of seriousness and the more general bias of the three parliamentary commissions of inquiry on sects, show that the concerns expressed by Mr Warsmann and Mr Urvoas are well founded, and that the instrumentalisation of parliamentary commissions of inquiry is already a reality — at times with the implicit support of the deputies who take part in them. The law of 14 November only reinforces the impunity of these practices.

Another element cited during the debates of 4 April is worrying. In recent years, the weight and influence of the parliamentary commissions have grown steadily, along with the publicity given to their reports.

[Voice]: The parliamentary commission delivered its report this morning to the president of the National Assembly. A much-awaited parliamentary report: « Enfance volée, les mineurs victimes des sectes » (“Stolen childhood: minors as victims of sects”). The youngest are cut off from the outside world, manipulated by the gurus or by the parents. With 50 proposals to protect minors.

[Interviewer]: A parliamentary inquiry report is the fruit of the work of a few deputies. It is subject to no effective adversarial oversight and, institutionally, has only an indicative value. That it should today enjoy such immunity and such publicity makes it — by design, perhaps — the ideal vector of repression against any opinion or practice that disturbs the established power.

The first and second parts of the documentary « 120 minutes pour la liberté spirituelle » (“120 minutes for spiritual freedom”), produced by the CICNS, viewable on the Dailymotion site and on sale on the CICNS site in DVD format, provide a complete analysis of the parliamentary inquiry reports on sects and set out the harmful consequences they have had on individual liberties.