“Parliament is not a tribunal” – some reasons why France should not pass a bill against negation of the Armenian genocide

BARBARA MARCINKOWSKA

One of my recent articles deals with diplomatic conflict between France and Turkey concerning a new French law penalising a negation of the Armenian Genocide. I wrote there that it seemed that the  French media had been quite silent in this case and probably it would be over soon… But it was not.  Nowadays, we are witnessing the ‘second act of the piece’ as on January 23 the French Senat took the same decision as the First Chamber had done one month earlier.

So it’s decided? Since the end of January each person who negates in public the crime of Armenian genocide can be sentenced to one year of imprisonment or fined 45 000 euro? I’m not sure…

I titled this article: some reasons why France should not pass a bill against negation of Aremnian genocide not because I am in favour of a negation of this crime (or any else) but, as I have just written, the legal proposal is very controversial – even in France.

Firstly, it extremely complicates relations with Turkey – an important partner in NATO and candidate to the EU. Relations between these two countries had not been ideal before, and now when the French Parliament passed the bill incompatible with Turkish interests – they can be only worse. We could already observe some retorsions (revocation of Turkish ambasador, declarations of suspension of military and political cooperation etc.) at the end of December when Assemblee Nationale voted the bill. A reaction of the Turkish government on results of the vote in the Senat was also very harsh.

Secondly, the bill seems to be against the French Constitution. Now, not only the Turkish representatives, but also the experts say that this penalisation contradicts freedom of speech and freedom of opinion. Acting in this spirit,  a group of 77 senators and 65 deputees asked the Constitutional Council this Tuesday to present its stand on this subject. The Turkish embassy proclaimed waiting for an official decison of the Council before fulfilling (or not) its threats to  break off diplomatic relations with France.

For Nicolas Sarkozy, who promised promulgation of the new law within two weeks after the vote in the Senat (probably to “buy” the votes of the Armenian minority in the presidential elections taking place this summer*), freedom of opinion is not the most important thing in that case and due to this fact every delay is highly inconvenient for him. Being afraid of a possible negative opinion of the Constitutional Council, Nicolas Sarkozy had prepared a new version of law including a number of amendments and presented it to ministers on 1st of February.

The inquietude of Mr Sarkozy is not void of reason… According to Robert Badinter (a lawyer, former president of the Constitutional Council and former minister of justice), an idea of creating this kind of law is unproper. Despite his concern about history of genocide and warm feelings towards Armenians, he claims that not only the recent bill, but also the law from 2001 which recognises the crime of Armenian genocide are anticonstitutional. Mr Badinter says that France has no legitimacy to decide which event in the history of other countries is a crime and which one is not. It is hard to disagree with the famous French lawyer on that point.

———
* Proposal of the Bill was presented by Valerie Boyer, deputy of the UMP,  Nicolas Sarkozy’s party.