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Mad justice & politics

Laurette & the stick of barristers' President Bigwood Jacqueline de Croÿ - 31 octobre 2005

Barristers’ president used to have a stick to beat the lawyers who took the wrong path. "The criterion to be elected", says the barristers’ president Bigwood, "is the trust one has in this fellow-member to defend the interests of lawyers and the fact of having the independence of mind to be able to exert the discipline in an objective way".

In 1996, Laurette Onkelinx, Minister for justice, divorced in a flash: her husband had been arrested in Turkey, under a Moroccan mandate for dug trafficking and criminal conspiracy. He was saved by his diplomatic passport and is since employed by Ministry for Justice as an adviser to the cults. Laurette then married Marc Uyttendaele, the lawyer of her ex-husband, who is prosperous by defending all that his office can assume of the states' cases and the ones of the Onkelinx family. Laurette' little sister was arrested for dug trafficking; her big brother, a handicapped restaurant owner, for illegally holding a weapon. Laurette’ husband will defend two men who had tied his brother-in-law to a car and stole of him 12.500 euro earned by a banquet for the benefit of the socialist party.

"Often the ministers choose the lawyers who belong to the same political family to defend their personal cases", then said the barristers president of the French-speaking bar of Brussels, John Bigwood. "There is nothing there to say of political designations. I understand that one puts the question, but for me, there is no problem. If the Uyttendaele cabinet is prosperous, it is because he is an out of common specialist of constitutional law. According to me, he is not privileged, in spite of what others can say. It is the competition that makes that the best is above. Moreover, there is no file of complaints in opposing him lodged with our bar. The individual cases, which are criticized by others, must be analyzed individually. The lawyers have much to gain at being careful in what they do. I also well realize that there are fellow-members who, for ethical reasons, would not accept to do what Marc Uyttendaele does. But Uyttendaele complied with all the rules, and thus, I do not see any problem. He and his wife are very conscious of the perception which one has and they pay only more attention to what they do. I find that it is a pity. Uyttendaele is a lawyer full of success and thus people are aiming at him."

Référence: http://www.mrax.be/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=911&

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