Every day for almost 14 years, when I take the stairs giving me access to my office, I see one of the two gallows on which for more than 50 years people, men and women, found guilty and sentenced were hanged. to the death penalty.
This gallows, now well sealed, was preserved at the Montreal Detention Facility thanks to the sustained effort of my predecessor who wanted us to remember that not so long ago, in Canada, we killed in the name of justice.
The death penalty, as we know, is still applied in too many countries and even in certain neighboring states.
But with the death, on February 9, of Robert Badinter, Minister of Justice under François Mitterrand, we are reminded of a whole argument for the abolition of the death penalty, of which he was the hero in France.
Lawyer and law professor, he took up this fight not only against the death penalty, but also for its abolition, when one of his clients, Roger Bontems, was executed despite all his pleading on November 28, 1972.
Subsequently managing to save seven lives by sparing them the death penalty, Roger Badinter, who became Minister of Justice on June 23, 1981, presented the bill less than three months later to the National Assembly, on September 17. abolishing the death penalty, delivering a speech of exceptional humanity.
His argument? We cannot be in favor of justice that kills. The countries where the death penalty is still used are very often, if not all, countries where freedom is compromised. We do not reduce bloody crime with the death penalty. To take a person’s life because they are guilty is to take away their opportunity to become better.
Believing that others can improve and become better is what touches me the most, I who am a prison chaplain, but also a citizen of a world where we seem to believe less and less in humanity.
Because this is the dilemma that Roger Badinter offers us. Do we still believe enough in human beings not only not to take their lives, but also to tell them and give them the opportunity to become better?
For there is sacred faith truly capable of saving us. This is the faith to which I bear witness to the men for whom I am chaplain. This is my credo: I believe in them, I believe that they can become better. And if, sometimes, doubt can surprise me, Robert Badinter helps me to help life become better and to denounce the revenge that would seek justice that kills.
Tribute to you, Mr Badinter, and thank you for everything you have been able to give to France and the world, to justice and to the humanity in man.