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The EU
legislated three directives (nos. 91/308/CEE, 2001/97/CE, 2005/60/CE) requiring
attorneys to accuse their clients on a suspicion of money laundering without
informing them about this (§§ 9-10). The French law requires your attorney to
observe you permanently and denounce every suspicion (§ 13). On 06/12/2012 the
European Court of Human Rights found this compatible with the right to private
correspondence with an attorney (Article 8 of the European Convention of Human
Rights).
French tax
attorney Patrick Michaud tried to prove contrary. He argued that the notion of
“suspect” was not defined clearly (§ 59). The Court replied that it is
impossible to arrive to “absolute certainty”, since this would produce “excessive
rigidity”, and that the concepts must be “more or less vagues” (§ 96). The ECtHR
continued that it had already been recognised in case law that sometimes the attorney’s
freedom of expression is more important than professional secret (§ 123).
The attorney
argued that the function of counselling in business transaction and defending
before tribunals could not be easily divided (§§ 59, 117.2), but it didn’t
work. The ECtHR replied that the duty to accuse is strictly limited to business
transactions that are clearly defined (§ 127), and that there is a filter of
the Bar (§ 129).
In 2010,
French attorneys 20 252 times accused their clients but only in 404 cases the clients
became
prisoners at the bar. Mr Michaud says that this means that the
system is not efficient, and waists time that could be invested in fighting
crime (§ 65). The Court replies that according to the intergovernmental body Financial
Action Task Force it is good that the French attorneys were among the best
in the World in accusing their clients behind the back (§ 125).
Mr Michaud
presented an analysis of the situation in Italy, Estonia, Belgium, Netherlands,
Ireland, the USA and Canada (§ 68). Do not choose France.
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