Extracts from the October 2006 Hearing of Didier Leschi

Extracts from the October 2006 Hearing of Didier Leschi

Head of the central bureau of religious affairs at the Ministry of the Interior, by the parliamentary commission Cults and Childhood.

A razor’s-edge exchange with M. Leschi, the sole critic before the parliamentary commission, who did not mince his words. One may note how important the cleavage between “anti-cult” and “moderates” is when, on hearing M. Leschi’s objective and particularly sound remarks, those hearing him declare themselves “scandalised”.

M. Fenech and M. Gest are UMP deputies, M. Vuilque is a socialist deputy, as is Mme David.

The hyperlinks were added by the CICNS.

Leschi: (…) In putting an end to the system of recognised religions, (the 1905 Act) also specified that the faithful have the right to practise their religion publicly and not solely in the private sphere, as is specified in particular by titles 3 and 5 of the 1905 Act (…) This freedom of belief is articulated with the right of parents to choose what they wish to transmit to their children, for our legal framework also includes the right of parents to educate their children in the values of their choice provided that these do not undermine the physical and moral integrity of the children — that is what article 371-1 of the Civil Code recalls: “parental authority belongs to fathers and mothers until the child’s majority or emancipation, in order to protect him in his safety, his health and his morality, to ensure his education and to permit his development in the respect due to his person”.

(…) To this must be added the European Convention on Human Rights, which says that the S tate shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their religious or philosophical convictions; where applicable, non-compliance with these obligations could constitute an offence against persons, liable to sanctions, and a disturbance of public order if this non-compliance is systematised within an associative framework.

(…) The activity of the central bureau of religious affairs has just reminded the administrations, the local authorities and the various public authorities, by means of circulars, of replies to parliamentary questions or of letters emanating from public authorities, that our legal regime is first of all one of freedom of conscience and of the free exercise of religion.

(…) The Ministry of the Interior is sometimes accused of underestimating the disturbance of public order that certain movements focusing the attention of the MIVILUDES would by their nature generate. I mean movements which for some have decades, indeed centuries of existence and are issued from great spiritual currents or attach themselves to them, such as “the Plymouth Brethren”, one of the branches of Protestantism, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and for some months now the Lubavitch [1], who are the expression of an old tradition of Jewish Hasidism. At the central bureau of religious affairs we think that public-order problems must be approached with the greatest rigour and that facts must be preferred to rumour or to the painful word of former faithful who have broken away, once persons and their dignity are called into question. All religious currents are liable to experience dérives sectaires. Only the examination of the facts legitimises the notion of vigilance; without which one runs a strong risk of departing from secular impartiality in favour of a cleavage between recognised religion/stigmatised religion. The administrative judge never ceases to recall this by penalising local authorities which dismiss Jehovah’s Witnesses whose only professional fault is membership of that movement. Likewise he recalls that one cannot refuse the hire of a hall to that movement solely because it would not be approved (…) Proselytism, that is to say campaigning to make known and to defend one’s opinions in the street or by going door to door, is not in itself condemnable; provided of course that it is not a matter of harassment. By analogy, one does not imagine withdrawing from a voluntary seller of “L’Humanité Dimanche” the custody of his child, any more than from a trade unionist who marches on the first of May, his daughter (…) It is therefore indeed the refusal of blood transfusion which could constitute a disturbance of public order, if it turned out that the assertion of this imperious belief impeded the functioning of the public hospital service. It is not for the administration to pass judgement on people’s beliefs or on their conscience, unless one is to hark back to other times or to other political regimes. The Catholic Church may condemn abortion, provided for by law, but it would disturb public order only if, through its demonstrations, it prevented women’s access to the hospital service. I recall that the Conseil d’État, in a decision of 16 August 2002, held that the refusal to receive a blood transfusion constitutes the exercise of a fundamental freedom and that the Kouchner Act of March 2002 reinforced the right of the adult patient to discuss his treatment, a right already enshrined by the case law of the Conseil d’État. (…) With a view to this hearing, it seemed to me necessary to ask the departmental prefectures to draw up a census, over the last three years, of incidents linked to transfusion. In the light of the results obtained, what comes back is a small number of incidents, often settled by discussion : never has an incident calling into question children, or the vital prognosis, or the functioning of the public hospital service been reported to me over these last three years.

(…) It was in January 1993 that the Conseil d’État held that the Kingdom Halls of the Jehovah’s Witnesses were places of worship and that on that ground they should be exempted from property tax, and the free exercise of religion naturally supposes the freedom to open places of worship; that is the object of the central bureau of religious affairs’ circular of 14 February 2005 which asked the Prefects to recall this fundamental right to mayors, given the abusive practices of pre-emption rights and of refusal of building permits which were tending to multiply.

(…) In several divorce proceedings, one observes that the religious affiliation of one of the parents is invoked before the judge by his or her spouse at every turn. Case law has put a little order into this by recalling that one must first assess the well-being of the child by specifying the established harmful consequences for the child and not by presupposing them from the parent’s spiritual affiliation.

(…) However, this opprobrium does not correspond to the feeling of the local populations who rub shoulders with the adherents. It is on the basis of this observation that Jacques Barrot, then deputy for Haute-Loire, had asked, in agreement with the Plymouth Brethren, a specialist in religious movements to make a study of this movement which could be made public. It is the study by Madame Blandine Chélini-Pont of the university of Aix. This study was not sufficient and the Plymouth Brethren asked a CNRS researcher, Sébastien Fath, to carry out another study on them in a concern for transparency. In this respect, this will to transparency on the part of movements which feel unjustly stigmatised is found also among the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who have always said they were in favour of a study of the young people of their movement provided it were entrusted to recognised academics such as those who work with the president of the EHESS [2], Mme Hervieu-Léger, or again in the CNRS laboratory [3] studying religions and laïcité directed by Jean-Paul Willaime. Such a will to transparency, I believe, must be underlined. Strengthened therefore by these scientific studies and by testimonies from people frequenting the Plymouth Brethren, the MIVILUDES’s earlier study had moderated its judgement on this movement by recognising that the accusations brought against them did not entirely correspond to reality. However, the MIVILUDES’s 2005 report makes the Plymouth Brethren reappear as liable to dérives sectaires in the education of children. That is naturally not to be excluded, but the file still needs to be substantiated in a rigorous and precise manner. Now, in this affair, we are once again in forms of approximation which may in the long run discredit the necessary and legitimate action of the public authorities against dérives sectaires.

More precisely, the new case for the prosecution is fed by 3 elements which raise questions:

1st element: the declarations of the former president of AVIFE [4] are highlighted although he was convicted of defamatory remarks against the Plymouth Brethren by the TGI of Lyon on 4 January 2005.

2nd element: it is indicated in the report that the Plymouth Brethren refuse all public schooling; this is factually inaccurate and, moreover, the current president of AVIF followed part of his compulsory schooling in the public education system although he had explained the contrary to the MIVILUDES.

3rd element, also important for assessing the dérive sectaire with regard to Plymouth Brethren children: it is not indicated that the correspondence teaching centre, the lycée Lechêne, which they set up has obtained the approval of the Ministry of Education. This centre is inspected by the regional pedagogical inspector of the Ministry of Education attached to the Académie of Lille.

According to the information supplied to the prefect of the Rhône, the inspections carried out show that the children experience an intellectual and physical development in conformity with what one is entitled to expect at their age. This inspector declares, I quote: “that the work is rigorous in form and in substance, that the course gives an impression of seriousness, that the person in charge is a former secondary-school principal who moreover is not an adherent of the Plymouth Brethren, as indeed are 90% of the teachers who work in this centre”.

(…) Here again, it is a problem of method and of the credibility of public action. Fundamentally, when one is imprecise in the facts referred to and when one relies solely on the testimonies of people who have left the groups, one cannot elaborate a just assessment of the facts at issue or carry out a rigorous administration of proof, which is particularly necessary in an inquiry which, devoid of the guarantees proper to judicial procedure, may nevertheless call into question the honour of persons.

(…) New religiosities, at least in our country, and non-conventional social practices are coming into being . C onfronted with such a diversification of our spiritual and philosophical landscape, it is essential for us not to confuse “non-conformism” and “dangerousness”, and consequently to distinguish original social practices from risky practices.

(…) In conclusion, I should like to underline an essential paradox from the point of view of the action of the public authorities. I very much fear that the stigmatisation of movements such as the Lubavitch or the Plymouth Brethren risks facilitating the passage to the act of people who will find it easy to cloak themselves in an anti-cult good conscience to justify their acts of malice or their antisemitic act s . In this respect, we are seeing an increase in assaults against the Jehovah’s Witnesses; in other words, I very much fear that this stigmatisation, this type of denunciation, may in the long run constitute disturbances of public orde r or at the very least manifestations of intolerance with regard to one of the most fundamental freedom s of every man and every citizen, freedom of conscience.

Fenech: (…) I believe that today, after having heard you, we may say here that you are going to confirm to us that the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the fifth religion of France. (…) And I ask you, but then very clearly, for I believe the moment is very important, whether you are indeed telling us that today the administration has no grievance against the Jehovah’s Witnesses such as to refuse them the status of a religious association, on the same footing as any religion.

Leschi: (…) The said associations today are entirely in conformity with tax law, since they have the benefit of the law on religious associations. Certainly there is a past tax dispute between the State and the Jehovah’s Witnesses; there is no present dispute over these manual gifts.

Fenech: (…) So, Monsieur Leschi, I have not been mistaken in my interpretation of your presentation of your founding text today?

Leschi: (…) Mr Chairman, I am ready to examine everything, but I see today no file showing a disturbance of public order (…) I asked the Miviludes to try to assemble these elements of proof of disturbances of public order, for example by questioning the ARH [5], the hospital directors, to know whether, for example in the case of a refusal of blood transfusion, there would be an impediment to the functioning of the public hospital service. I have none, so I am not going to invent a disturbance of public order, which what is more would be severely penalised by the judge — I know you will be sensitive to that — when no substantiated file has been brought forward.

Fenech: We have heard here young Jehovah’s Witnesses, young adults who recounted to us their path of psychological confinement. You know as well as we do what the social treatment of the minor is within the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who cannot take part in a certain number of secular events, who lives between the Kingdom Hall and his family and who, from a certain point of view that has been set out to us here, does not correspond to international norms, notably that of the New York convention on the rights of the child, which requires that the child be raised and educated so as to attain a critical spirit in order to make of him a free citizen. Does that form part of the problem such as may constitute a disturbance of public order in the eyes of your administration?

Leschi: (…) You know very well that these are extremely difficult and delicate questions (…) As regards freedom of conscience and the right to educate one’s children according to the values one wishes to transmi t, you know very well that there is always an assessment that can be very different depending on the person. There was a time when one could explain that someone who adhered to a communist movement was stripped of his personality and that, when he left it, he had the feeling of an extreme pain since those former comrades refused to speak to him. When I was a student in political science, there was a work (…) which was called “the cult” about the communist party and which was written by a sociologist (…) who is called Marc Lazar. There you are, all that is a question of assessment.

Vuilque: (…) I am, I weigh my words, scandalised by what you have said, because you speak of the disturbance of public order and you have raised the fact that a certain number of associations and other people fighting against cult organisations would themselves be liable to take part in disturbances of public order by stigmatising a certain number of organisations.

Martine David: (…) I find it hard to understand that you give the feeling of being totally impervious to the testimonies that have been delivered to the MIVILUDES on several occasions by adherents who have left the various Jehovah’s Witnesses movements or others. (…) Whereas we have already had for many years established testimonies which of course must be taken with caution, like any testimony. (…) Can one consider that you have had no knowledge of these testimonies, ever — that is the first question I put to you (…) I am not calling you personally into question (…) but that means that for a long time the bureau of religious affairs has been malfunctioning, or else there are other weak links, if I dare say so; but one cannot all the same allow it to be said that these former adherents invented everything, that it comes out of their imagination, and that nothing is possible (…) I should very much like, M onsieu r Leschi, that with us from time to time you would agree to doubt as to the true respect for the rights of the children who are in cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Scientology, and that you would agree to look this reality in the face (…) there are all the same a certain number of thousands of children in France for whom the right to life in society, the right of access to education in all its fullness and flourishing, is not respected; so on that, can we discuss or not?

Leschi: (…) If your commission substantiates a case for the prosecution with precise, systematic elements, proofs which what is more could be transmitted to the judges for possible proceedings (…) for the moment nothing precise has ever been put forward these last years. You speak of the local commissions; obviously the reports come up, each time all that comes up, I observe the imprecision.

Martine David: (…) Will you agree to consider that we are not inventing all this, that it is the reality? (…) is that too something you are willing to look in the face, and that perhaps it explains why certain elements of information have a little difficulty coming up, because there are testimonies from former adherents who have difficulties in initiating legal proceedings — that is obvious; that does not for all that mean that nothing happened.

Leschi: (…) I believe it is difficult for the Ministry of the Interior as a ministry to substitute itself for individuals in order to make files which incriminate other people; that is not its function, I remind you. Moreover, there are institutions that are made for that. If the Children’s Defender, who exists, who has been put in place, for example, sends me a file (…) and the file is substantiated, well then it will be taken into account.

Alain Gest: (…) You arrived here in an extremely defensive frame of mind, that is the least one can say (…) and I leave you to measure the tremendous draught that this kind of announcement is going to create as regards other movements, once the press present here has brought to general knowledge what you have just indicated.

Leschi: (…) I am perhaps a little sharp, it is in my nature, but also because very often I know how to hear and to listen, and I clearly saw that on the Jehovah’s Witnesses there was an almost systematic calling into question, and sometimes in extremely violent terms, on the part of certain of your colleagues, of my bureau’s action and of my own in particular. So allow me, for once … I am here before you and so … I am answering it.

Fenech: Never has the Conseil d’État said that the Jehovah’s Witnesses did not disturb public order and were to be considered as a religion in their own right! Never!

Leschi: (…) One of the criteria for granting the benefits of the 1905 Act is precisely that there be no disturbance of public order (…) For 10 years we gave as grounds for the refusal of the benefit of articles 200 and 238 to the Jehovah’s Witnesses associations the explanation that they constituted a disturbance of public order. Several times, the Conseil d’État told us: “No, erroneous assessment by the prefectural authority.” That is called case law (…) as for me, as a secular administration, I pass no judgement on beliefs.

Gest: (…) We know very well that there is a smokescreen organised around religious belief, because it is obviously the means, precisely, of rejecting possible accusations (…) You are entering into the discourse of those who tell us: “There is no problem of religion, of cults in France, there is no problem.” (…) All these people are fabulators, nothing ever happened, the Solar Temple is a nice joke

.

Leschi: (…) All religions, all activities of this type, are liable to dérives sectaires. I think that assessment simply by list is an assessment which narrows the focus and which avoids questioning what a dérive sectaire really is and the fact that it is not confined to this or that movement. I am not saying that there cannot be any among the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that is not what I am telling you. I am telling you that stigmatisation on the basis of a criterion which is simple membership does not make it possible to advance the question, and moreover that is why the MIVILUDES had been made to evolve towards the notion of dérive sectaire and not to confine itself simply to a problem of lists.

Leschi: (…) For the moment I observe that there is systematically imprecision of the facts. Impossibility of putting forward court decisions, and I am not entitled to substitute myself for this absence of proof.

[1] Chabad-Lubavitch (or Chabad Lubavitch), also known under the names Chabad, Habad or Lubavitch, is one of the most important branches of Hasidic Judaism and one of the largest Jewish movements in the world, particularly in the USA and in Israel.

[2] Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

[3] Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

[4] AVIFE Association “Aide aux Victimes des Frères exclusifs”. http://avife.site.voila.fr/ego.htm

[5] Agences Régionales d’Hospitalisation