Volte la plume et Vire de bord

THE CHICKEN, THE NEIGHBOUR AND THE JUDGE

2007-04-14T14:05:00.000+01:00

"Whereas the chicken is a stupid and mundane animal, to the extent that none has yet managed to tame it, not even a Chinese circus, that its surroundings are filled with much silence, some sweet clucks and cacklings which go from merry (lay of an egg) to serene (tasting of a worm), through scared (sight of a fox);

that such a quiet company has only ever annoyed those who, for other reasons, entertain wrath against the owners of these galliforms;

the Court won't decide that the boat disturb the sailor, flour the baker, violin the conductor and the chicken a citizen of the said La Rochette, village of Sallede (402 souls), in the department of Puy-de-Dôme;

For the foregoing reasons, judging publicly and contradictorily, quash the judgment, dismiss Mr Rougier of his action and condemn him to the costs."

Cour d’appel de Riom, 1ère chambre civile, 7 septembre 1995

I'M ALIVE! ALIIIIIVE!

2007-04-08T13:42:00.000+01:00

Yes, I'm alive, but really busy.

So don't go thinking this blog is dead, it just need some fresh air.

Yesterday I talked with a future PhD student about private international law. It is definitely one of my favourite subject. But it is hard to write about it since this blog is meant to be addressed to many different kinds of persons.

A very clever person once tried to explain me that part of cleverness is to know how to explain complicated things. I'll try to make it now, though I still have in project a post where I would explain what is private international law a bit better.

Let's think of an accident. You are driving a small scuba diving engine, enjoying, enthusiastic, the marvels of the deep sea, close by the shores of Papua-New Guinea. Fishes are really beautifull, and the sea is totally transparent. But, suddenly, you feel a deep pain in your bottom: a small shark, having break the ties of his leash, has jumped to grasp your appetizing flesh. After having taken away the small monster, you quarrel with his master. The guy happens to be English, and fortunately you speak this barbaric language. He says you, with your... (fill in your nationality) smell, had provocated his sharkey. Knowing a very good lawyer (me) you come and ask, at your return by jet-ambulance from Papua-New Guinea via Bangalore, what you can do.

Well, the first question you will ask: may I sue him here? After all, everything happened in New Guinea. Second, admitting you can, which law to apply? After all, it's not because your judge has jurisdiction that your law obviously has. Judges are here to render justice, there are practical matters at stake (they must be easily asked upon). To the contrary, law is there to give solution and order to the State, but they don't always give answers to everything (example: french law don't care about a driving accident in Minnesota).

That's the two main questions Private International Law tries to answer. What judge, what law.

And in this world of growing interactions, you can believe me there are opportunities to ask this question: marriage between different nationals, adoptions of asian or african children, plane accident on the other side of the globe, internet business, crude oil transport, press offences through borders, etc.

Well, at this stage, I hope everything's fine. Finding the questions was easy. Now the answers get really complicated.

If we ask this kind of question, it's because judges and laws are different. The judge in Papua is different from the judge in your country, and the laws of England may differ greatly from that of your country (provided none of these countries are yours, of course).

In a perfect world, to this set of simple questions (which judge, which law), there would be a bunch of unique answers, easily answered, so that everybody knows how to deal with these issues. But here is the trouble: there is often as many answers as there are countries.

In fact, since each country made its laws on its own, each one has historically dealt with these issues on its own. And even though there were international treaties and conventions, even though lawyers have tried to look above the border to see how it was dealt with elsewhere, those conservatist turtles always tended to favour the solutions in keeping with their own internal system rather than to uniformise it with the others.

It can be understood, actually. It is not because there is an international element in the problem that it must be solved in a way completely inconsistent with the rest of the law. To the contrary: sometimes the law has to protect the State from what it cannot accept, like repudiation of the wife now, an institution contrary to equality in genders for Europe, or divorce, back to the late 19th century catholic France.

Hope everything was short but understandable.

Get back to me if it was not!

(close the window, now,it's a bit cold...)

POLITICS IN VIRTUE(AL WORLDS)?

2007-01-21T16:17:00.000+01:00

Second life seems to be getting bigger and bigger. After companies and law-makers, this online world had attracted politicians in the USA. French politicians seem to get interested too, since Jean-Marie Le Pen and Segolène Royal (fr) have landed in this virtual world too.

I don't mean to make any politics in this blog, send me an email if you feel like commenting on that.

Autre ref: Article intéressant de Libé, un peu court.

LES BONNES RESOLUTIONS...

2007-01-17T11:46:00.000+01:00

... disparaissent souvent au bout de quelques jours.

Je faisais le 7 janvier dernier référence au projet de loi sur le droit au logement opposable.

Il semblerait, suite à une communication faite par un fonctionnaire du Ministère du Logement devant le Conseil Supérieur des Tribunaux Administratifs (effarant le nombre de commissions administratives qui peuvent prendre part à des décisions, soit dit en passant) que le droit au logement opposable ne devrait aboutir que rarement à des décisions de justice.

Selon l'Union Syndicale des Magistrats Administratifs "Le ministère de l’emploi, de la cohésion sociale et du logement a précisé que le recours au juge ne devait être qu’ultime. La commission de médiation devra jouer un rôle de filtre ; notamment, les intéressés ne seront pas reconnus prioritaires sur n’importe quel logement. Et si un mal logé refuse un logement qui lui a été accordé, le juge devra lui faire comprendre qu’il n’a pas un droit absolu à un logement."

Encore une fois, suivez l'analyse faite par le Professeur Rolin.

Deux choses, à ce stade:

Si l'USMA traduit véritablement dans ces quelques mots la pensée du Ministère, la portée de cette farce atteint au pathétique. On médiatise le qualificatif "opposable" en arguant du passage d'un droit-principe à un droit enfin efficace, utilisable en justice, et on rassure ensuite les magistrats, le corps de justice, que cette efficacité n'est qu'une pure pétition de principe, i.e. une illusion médiatique.
Par un optimisme naturel, et l'envie de croire encore un peu dans l'Etat français, je préfère quand même instiller un doute salvateur. Il s'agit d'une traduction syndicale, d'abord, avec les risques de filtre partisan que cela peut engendrer. Il s'agit ensuite de la traduction d'une communication d'un haut fonctionnaire, qui ne sera certainement pas le dernier à retoucher le projet de loi, et qui ne sera pas membre des instances appelées à la mettre éventuellement en oeuvre. Les ministres peuvent être rappelés à l'ordre par le Premier d'entre eux, ou le Président, un haut fonctionnaire peut l'être de même par son Ministre de tutelle (une réaction, Monsieur le Ministre?). Pour finir, il s'agissait d'une communication à l'attention de magistrats inquiets de la mise en oeuvre d'une procédure qui leur demanderait un travail certain. De là à dire qu'il pouvait encore s'agir d'intox démagogique...

Quel que soit la réalité de ces "espoirs"que j'avoue trouver moi même un peu naïfs, l'effet de cette communication sur la crédibilité du "gouvernement d'action" proné par de Villepin est désastreuse. De ce point de vue, vive internet et la liberté des médias... (Et merci Monsieur le professeur).

THE MODEL, THE VILLAINS AND THE PUBLIC EYE

2007-01-12T13:36:00.000+01:00

Daniella Cicarelli is a beautiful brasilian model, the once fiancé of Ronaldo, the world cup champion, joining such privacy club as the one of such famous members as Victoria Beckham or Adriana Karembeu. But her fame crossed borders, recently, thanks to a trial on privacy rights against... YouTube.

People are getting paparazzi these days. Well, people all get to become artists, pop stars or columnists (aren't they, Voltevire?). Internet's freedom. The web has tremendously enhanced our ability to show, discuss and share. But what if the object of our discussion and our sharing was somebody's life?

Like Pamela Anderson and Miss Hilton, Daniella Cicarelli is considered a woman whose body and sex appeal is worth some phantasm. Like Miss Anderson and Paris Hilton, she may just have been a bit too much... Last September, she was caught in a very intimate happening with her latest boyfriend by an "amateur" (in moviemaking) on a warm spanish beach (I provide with no link: easy to find for anyone interested ;) ). Apart from the fact that stars are not more original than us in finding their love places (the sea's nice, though), the consequences of this little love sharing set interesting questions.

First, the scene (LeMonde, CNN).
The bad guy was decided to share his discovery. He posted it on YouTube, a website where anybody can post and see videos, and the film soon became very popular (in Brasil, and beyond: Miss Cicarelli is an MTV's speaker). Now the beauty of course decided to fight back and used her lawyer's talents to get an order from a brasilian court to remove all videos from YouTube. The website complied, but appeared to be overwhelmed by its users which kept posting the same videos whenever the host was shutting its last access. To obtain efficient enforcement of this order, the judge therefore took another one on January (in Portuguese but understandable), whereby the Court asked Brasil's networks operators to block all access to YouTube. After a wave of protest for such a blunt order (though it appears that some companies did not follow the judge's order), the judge withdrew his injunction, YouTube and its users were free to provide the video, and the beauty (and her boyfriend, an interested servant knight in the game) lost.

Second, the issue.
Internet is still a success as keeping its values of freedom of speech, of communication, of imagination. But as anybody interested in civil liberties might know, civil rights and liberties always get to conflict with each other at some point. Miss Cicarelli's beauty provided us with an example: she has right to privacy (in a minor way, she's a professional of public exposure, after all) that conflict with the right of free speech and the right to information.

Nothing new here. Since the fables and satyrs, we know that public individuals might get grieved by free speech. Magistrates, Kings and Popes had to fight rumors, pamphlets and other engravings menacing public authority. Indictment were invented to protect public order and the sovereign's authorities, such as lèse-majesté.

When Monarchy fainted, and individuals got rights (that is, what lawyers call subjective rights) at the turn of the XVIIIth and XIXth century, the indictment of defamation ("diffamation", in french) was developed to protect people (and not only monarchs) from offensive words.

But it was only words, and the first reaction to such assertions was mistrust. Thus the battle around the question of truth: who is right, between the offender alleging the facts and the victim denying the facts? Many legal systems condemned defamatory statements (libels and slanders) on the basis that offensive statements without proofs are false statements. But if it could be proven to be true, there was no harm to be compensated. I guess it was in accordance with public interest to know the truth.

Now, in the age of audio and video broadcasting, things changed. Though image and sound might be deceptive and even manipulated, the first reaction, and therefore the legal presumption, is a reaction of trust. Since there was no much leeway left to attack the truth of the assertion, of the fact revealed, the question gets different. How much of the truth might we unveil? Is all the truth worth showing?

The answer is of course negative. We all have a private life, which should not go public without our consent. Thus, law invented the privacy rights to control your own image, your family, even your personal belongings. Wikipedia provides us again with an interesting article in its french version (you'll find a more practical minded -how surprising- version in english by clicking on the english link to the left of it).

Last, the question.
But, to tell the truth, I really wonder about how much people really want this protection. I would hate having the same trouble as Miss Cicarelli, for example (though I doubt anybody would be interested if I was on the tape), but recent trends would rather tend to show a general acceptance towards more and more intrusion or pregnance of the public part of our lives, and the shrinking room left to what should remain private.

For example, there is little concern about cameras being placed in many public places (at work, in the street...). It is true that it is public places, but I don't think we couldn't have any private activity in those places, and cameras are much less discreet than men. Another example is this service website, Intelius, awarded "Best New Company 2006" by the American Business Awards, which enables you to get the whole life of any random person in the USA for 50 dollars. It is compiling datas from public services, marketing lists, police files, so that you can get the whole picture of somebody's life, past and present. French are stilling chilling to hear about that in France (it would be illegal anyway), but I wonder how bad it would be accepted in some years from now.

A last and milder example is that provided by Daniella Cicarelli's lack of caution. It strikes me quite a lot that the decision to close a website overwhelmed by useless videos (there are some usefull applications, though) rose such a wave of protests (200 000 signatures in just a few days) whereas people were really ironic on the importance of such video. I agree that the video doesn't show anything special, and that sexual life of a top model whose audience will last some seasons to the best is of no real importance. But if we compare what is at stake, between the access to this website and the right to protect someone's privacy, it is overwhelmingly to the website that goes all sympathy...

It is by far time to get to a conclusion.

I now wonder, without security, as to the decay of privacy rights. Are the consequences of such intervention eventually to be neglected? After all, it's a right we've discovered just 3 centuries ago, and only in real urban western countries.

Whether or not this intuition is correct, I doubt we'll stop worrying about the Leviathan's or Big Brother's powers on our lifes. In short, even though we wouldn't care (that much) about protecting our private life from our neighbour's intrusion , but just from the State, its police, and maybe from such "impersonal" legal entities as big companies.

I'll address another concern later, much more legally oriented, on the question asked by the CNN article: "The World Wide Web means the world can sue". And if you kept reading until the end, thanks for your bravery! Any comment?

MEILLEURS VOEUX POUR UN TOIT

2007-01-07T16:59:00.000+01:00

L'actualité fait parfois ressurgir l'utilité d'une petite expertise juridique. La question du droit au logement opposable fournit ainsi l'exemple d'une question d'actualité qui trouverait l'utilité d'une certaine analyse.

Petite explication de texte pour les non juristes. "Droit -au logement - opposable". Pourquoi ce mot barbare, déjà?

Un droit, c'est en quelque sorte la consécration juridique d'un pouvoir de faire quelque chose ou d'avoir quelque chose. Voilà pour le contenu. Il faut ensuite que pouvoir soit détenu par quelqu'un. Voilà pour le titulaire.

Avec ces deux éléments là, on est capable de définir l'objet du droit et le sujet du droit. Mais d'où vient qu'il s'agit d'un droit, et non d'un simple pouvoir? Le lion a un pouvoir de vie ou de mort sur ses petits, le pilote a un pouvoir de direction sur son bateau, l'individu lambda a un pouvoir d'organisation de son emploi du temps. Qu'est-ce qui diffère entre ces pouvoirs matériels et ce pouvoir particulier de revendre sa voiture ou de voter pour une élection?

La différence, c'est l'opposabilité de ce pouvoir: un droit est, par nature, opposable. Parce que, quelqu'en soit la raison, la société a décidé de suivre des règles (le Droit, au sens large du terme), celles-ci s'imposent à tout un chacun, quelque soit leur contenu. La possibilité de revendre sa voiture vient du droit de propriété, que tout le monde, l'Etat y compris, doit respecter en tant que tel. Par contre, ce n'est qu'en montrant les dents pour le lion, en jouant de la barre et de la voilure pour le pilote, et en s'acharnant contre sa montre et les aléas d'une journée que chacun peut faire respecter son pouvoir. Le pouvoir de fait doit se battre, le pouvoir de droit s'impose.

On pourra bien sûr me répondre qu'il faudra peut être se battre aussi, mais en justice cette fois-ci, pour faire respecter ce dernier. Mais la différence, décisive, se trouve d'une part dans le fait que l'on ne conteste pas le droit lui même mais plutôt son attribution ou ses effets dans le cas concret, et d'autre part dans le fait que les solutions judiciaires ou législatives sont alors toutes acceptées et organisées par le corps social. Le droit est légitime.

Pourquoi alors parler de droit opposable pour ce droit au logement, puisqu'un droit est en principe opposable? On devrait en fait plutôt parler de principe. Le droit au logement existait déjà en tant que principe législatif. Comme le dit la deuxième partie du premier alinéa du texte en référence, la loi du 6 juillet 1989, cependant, "[le droit au logement] s'exerce dans le cadre des lois qui le régissent".

Autrement dit, le droit au logement n'existe pas en lui-même, ne peut pas servir de fondement à une action en justice, par exemple. Il fallait pour le faire respecter se servir des divers énoncés qui suivent, et vérifier par exemple que la seule raison du refus de d'un bailleur à telle personne, c'était la couleur de sa peau, puisque le texte précise: " Aucune personne ne peut se voir refuser la location d'un logement en raison de son origine, son patronyme, son apparence physique [...]".
Ainsi, la première des applications du principe, dans cette loi de 1989, était le refus de la discrimination, non la possibilité d'agir en justice pour avoir un logement.

En devenant "opposable", on ferait mieux de dire "justiciable", on le transforme de simple déclaration de principe à arme juridique; il devient invoquable par les particuliers devant le juge de droit commun (administratif), et le rendre invoquable contre quelqu'un: l'Etat (et les collectivités locales). Ce passage du niveau de principe au niveau du droit est complexe, puisque en devenant une justification pour des actions en justice concrètes et circonstanciées, il impose de réfléchir à ses titulaires précis, à ses conditions, à ses sanctions...

Quant au détail, n'étant pas un grand spécialiste du droit administratif, j'ai préféré aller trouver une source fiable et pertinente sur le sujet. Vous trouverez donc ici un lien vers l'excellente analyse du Professeur Rolin (je conseille d'ailleurs sérieusement aux juristes d'y faire un tour régulier), qui procède en trois posts à une véritable analyse de la valeur technique du projet. Encore une fois, il faut applaudir la qualité légistique (un bien gros mot pour parler de l'art de légiférer) de nos gouvernements...

En quelques mots: on sait que le texte permet aux personnes d'invoquer un droit devant les tribunaux (le droit au logement) alors que jusqu'à présent il s'agissait surtout d'un principe dont la réalisation se concrétisait dans un petit nombre de droits qui ne garantissaient pas en eux-mêmes le logement.

On sait moins que ce texte conditionne l'action devant les tribunaux à l'accord d'une commission de médiation neutre dont la décision (sans délai établi!) ne pourra être portée devant les tribunaux administratifs que dans des conditions dont le flou paraît ouvrir la porte à une interprétation qui en ruinerait tous les effets.

Les sanctions offertes au juge elles-mêmes sont assez faibles. Il s'agit pour le juge d'imposer le placement de l'individu ou de la famille dans un logement, et ce sous astreinte (c'est à dire au versement d'une amende par jour de retard). Cependant, le logement pourrait n'être, en fonction des circonstances, qu'un simple foyer de nuit. Quant à l'astreinte, elle serait à verser... à un fonds public d'investissement de projet de logement immobilier. Autrement dit, si la collectivité locale ou l'Etat ne loge ou reloge pas, l'un ou l'autre sera forcé de subventionner un projet de logement. Comme si ils n'avaient pas déjà besoin de le faire au regard du nombre de personnes qui bénéficieraient de ce droit au logement pseudo effectif (5 000 000 si l'on suit la Fondation l'Abbé Pierre, à partir de 2012) et au regard de la saturation du parc immobilier...

Voilà pour un aperçu rapide de l'aspect juridique du sujet. L'analyse, partagée par de nombreux auteurs, semble finalement achopper sur la même conclusion: ce n'est pas d'une arme juridique dont on a besoin pour permettre à certaines personnes de se loger. C'est tout simplement de nouveaux toits pour loger tout ceux qui en aurait besoin.

Ce que je trouve plus intéressant, pour finir, c'est l'effet de l'arrivée conjuguée d'une bonne idée (les tentes de Médecin du Monde), d'une action médiatisée (les enfants de Don Quichotte) et les soudaines manoeuvres politiques d'un exécutif agonisant (Chirac et Villepin qui s'essayent à la fois à un baroud d'honneur et à ennuyer la gauche en rognant sur leur terrain).

Si j'ai le temps, je m'essairai peut être un peu plus tard à une analyse politique de la chose.

Meilleurs voeux :)

2007-01-06T13:53:00.000+01:00

Bonne année 2007!
Happy New Year!
Big 007 to you all!
Frhöhliches Neue Jaar!
Gelukkig Nieuwjaar!
Feliz Ano Nuevo!
С Новым Годом!
Feliz Ano Novo!
Gott Nytt Ar!
Mereth Veren e-Doled Eruion!
...

"I" MAY DIE

2006-12-15T10:49:00.000+01:00

8h30, subway, line 13, Paris.

An advertisement paper is lazily hanging from the wagon's ceiling. Who cares. It's floating, and coming back into its place, not even able to find it definite shape against the air movements. No one cares. Nobody's really looking upward, it's time to head for diner, and home. And though...
It's shouting; it's provoking. It's frustrating...

It's a woman magazine. One of France's best-sellers. Cameron Diaz on cover, an offer for individualized horoscop; nothing special. Even its main title is not that unusual. But here is the evil.

"Year 2007, Year of I"

2007, l'année Moi...

How much of a society is to be found on a magazine's cover? They aim at distorting what we are, to please, to focus, to print our minds and memories, and eventually to sell.

Still, doesn't that show something? Doesn't that show what we really care for?

Would you please pay your taxes? No, I moved to Switzerland, sorry. Isn't it my right?
Would you please get off the road? No, we're on strike, it's a fundamental right!
Would you please have us talk, it's our baby! No, it's my body, it's my right!

Quest of identity, lack of confidence, consumer's lust... We cherish ourselves, loose ourselves, look for ourselves..

There are studies, recent studies, which would show that man has not grown to what he is only by genetical opportunities. Like chimpazees, we would have grown because we learned, not every individual from his experience, but as groups, as societies. Because we shared what we learned, from Thalès to Einstein, from the silex to the mobile, from the wars and the peaces... Because we cared, too.

What would come up of that? What would come up of societies which do not really share things in common but their narcissism? When they do not claim their common belonging? Will they disappear against others, stronger in their shared values? Are they designed to die?

LAW AND LOGICS

2006-12-14T12:35:00.000+01:00

Currently addressing issues of definitions, I keep reading that an arbitral award (i.e. a private judicial decision) is to be qualified as such when the decision has res judicata effect (that is, for non lawyers, that the decision binds the parties and the judge once made). This would help to define them from procedural orders, which don't.

Please be logical!

How can we logically decide over a characterization according to its effect? Res judicata is a legal effect of some decisions, that means that law attaches a special effect to some special decisions. Law is not part of the natural sciences, we cannot observe the effect, we have to infer it from what is known. Characterization, therefore, cannot be done according to its legal effect, but taking into account other factors, those that can be observed. Unless... Unless we are aiming at having such an effect, and going backwards towards the way we have to address the facts. But even there, it shouldn't come in the demonstration, only in its finding.

Those of you reading french can have a useful glance at :

Eisenmann (Charles). "Juridiction et logique (selon les données du droit français)", in Mélanges dédiés à Gabriel Marty, Toulouse, Université des sciences sociales, 1978, p. 477-506

By the way, did you know that "definition" comes from the same latin root as "final", because defining was the outcome of a debate, and not its starting point? Interesting etymological advice, isn't it?

CYBERJUSTICE

2006-12-13T12:51:00.000+01:00

It's been told from time to time that the virtual world needed its own justice. I mean judicial bodies, since few can pretend that man in virtual worlds would have different values than man in the flesh and bone one.

Fabien Gelinas in Canada, Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kholer in Switerland or Catherine Kessedjian in France have all addressed the issue of online dispute resolution, and that is of course part of those I have thought of (no idea how things are going in the US now, but I know for sure they were among the first to think about it).

Now, we're talking about something different.

Do you know Second life? It's a role playing game which sole purpose is to take you to another world, and propose to act as yourself or another in a different environment, a virtual one, where you can create, exchange, do whatever you like. Le Monde had revealed it to the French public (at least your devoted writer) by last summer, with an interesting series of online articles called "Mondes virtuels, Web de demain ?". It's accessible to those willing to pay an extra ;)

Well, so far, only companies were attracted to this new virtual world, like IBM who devoted 10 million dollars this year to develop a research center in the virtual world to study its functioning and the way to develop and market new products in it.

It seems that the business world is not the only one to find its entries in the virtual one. Judge Posner, considered one of the major legal thinkers in the U.S. and promoter of the scientific paradigm known as "law and economics", has apparently entered the virtual room last thursday, and had chats with other Second Life denizens, some of them being lawyer in every day's life.

Where lawyers get interested in role playing games, I guess law is not that sterilizing!

Ever thought of having a fight with Bush? Wait for some months and get a Second life passport...