Gayssot Act

Last updated

The Gayssot Act or Gayssot Law (French : Loi Gayssot), enacted on 13 July 1990, makes it an offence in France to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity as defined in the London Charter of 1945, on the basis of which Nazi leaders were convicted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945–1946 (article 9).

Contents

Provisions

Communist member of Parliament Jean-Claude Gayssot proposed the law. It is one of several European laws prohibiting Holocaust denial. Its first article states that "any discrimination founded on membership or non-membership of an ethnic group, a nation, a race or a religion is prohibited." The law also requires the Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme (National Consultative Commission on Human Rights), created in 1947, to publish an annual report on relations between ethnicities in France. [1]

Previous legislation

Marchandeau Decree (1939)

At the request of the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism, Paul Marchandeau, center-right Justice Minister in the 1938-1939 third and fourth Daladier governments, issued the decree of 21 April 1939 amending the Law on the Freedom of the Press of 29 July 1881 by providing prosecution "when defamation or insult committed against a group of persons, by their origin, race or religion, will have been designed to arouse hatred among citizens or residents" (translated). This decree was repealed by the law of the Vichy collaborationist government of 16 August 1940. [2] [3] The decree came again into force after the Liberation of France in 1944 by an ordinance of 9 August 1944 repealing most of the Vichy legislation. [4] [5]

Pleven Law (1972)

René Pleven, center-right [6] Justice Minister in the Chaban-Delmas and Messmer governments in 1969–1973, proposed in 1972 a new law against racism, which was unanimously adopted by the National Assembly, the 72-546 1 July 1972 Law pertaining to the fight against racism. This law came as a requisite after France's ratification in 1971 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. It differed considerably from the 1939 decree, which permitted only the prosecutor's office to initiate a procedure, whereas the 1972 law allowed any representative organization to initiate a legal procedure.

After Robert Faurisson was removed from his university chair under the Gayssot Act, he challenged it as a violation of his right to freedom of expression under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The United Nations Human Rights Committee upheld the condemnation of Faurisson, but mentioned that the Gayssot Act may be too broad. [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Faurisson</span> French academic and Holocaust denier (1929–2018)

Robert Faurisson was a British-born French academic who became best known for Holocaust denial. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, and by letters to French newspapers, especially Le Monde, which contradicted the history of the Holocaust by denying the existence of gas chambers in Nazi death camps, the systematic killing of European Jews using gas during the Second World War, and the authenticity of The Diary of Anne Frank. After the passing of the Gayssot Act against Holocaust denial in 1990, Faurisson was prosecuted and fined, and in 1991 he was dismissed from his academic post.

The droit d'auteur or French authors' rights law, is in the jurisdiction of France a set of exclusive prerogatives available to a creator over his or her intellectual work, as part of the intellectual property area of law. It has been very influential in the development of authors' rights laws in other civil law jurisdictions, and in the development of international authors' rights law such as the Berne Convention. It has it's roots in the 16th century, before the legal concept of copyright has been developed in the United Kingdom. Based on the "rights of the author" instead of on the right to copy, its philosophy and terminology are different from those used in copyright law in common law jurisdictions. The term droit d’auteur reveals that the interests of the author are at the center of the system, not that of the investor.

Légifrance is the official website of the French government for the publication of legislation, regulations, and legal information. It was established by decree in 2002. Access to the site is free.

The Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples is an anti-racist French NGO founded in 1949.

The Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme is a French governmental organization created in 1947 by an arrêté from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to monitor the respect for human rights in the country. It may acts as counsellor for the government and propose laws, and then survey the application of governmental measures and laws voted in Parliament.

Anti-Jewish laws were enacted by the Vichy France government in 1940 and 1941 affecting metropolitan France and its overseas territories during World War II. These laws were, in fact, decrees of head of state Marshal Philippe Pétain, since Parliament was no longer in office as of 11 July 1940. The motivation for the legislation was spontaneous and was not mandated by Germany. These laws were declared null and void on 9 August 1944 after liberation and on the restoration of republican legality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spokesperson of the Government of France</span> Ministerial position since 1969

The spokesperson of the Government is the minister in charge of the public relations of the Government of France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UNESCO Headquarters</span> Building in Paris, France

UNESCO Headquarters, or Maison de l'UNESCO, is a building inaugurated on 3 November 1958 at number 7 Place de Fontenoy in Paris, France, to serve as the headquarters for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It is a building that can be visited freely.

The hate speech laws in France are matters of both civil law and criminal law. Those laws protect individuals and groups from being defamed or insulted because they belong or do not belong, in fact or in fancy, to an ethnicity, a nation, a race, a religion, a sex, a sexual orientation, or a gender identity or because they have a handicap. The laws forbid any communication which is intended to incite discrimination against, hatred of, or harm to, anyone because of his belonging or not belonging, in fact or in fancy, to an ethnicity, a nation, a race, a religion, a sex, a sexual orientation, or a gender identity, or because he or she has a handicap.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racism in France</span> Overview of racism in France

Racism has been called a serious social issue in French society by some commentators despite public belief that racism does not exist on a serious scale in France. Antisemitism, as well as prejudice against ethnic Muslims and other non-Christians, have a long history. Acts have been reported against members of resident minority groups including Jews, Berbers, Arabs and Asian people. 2019 police data indicates a total of 1,142 acts classified as "racist" without a religious connotation. Some racist acts have a religious connotation: the same data indicates 1,052 anti-Christian, 687 anti-Jewish and 154 anti-Muslim acts were perpetrated in 2019 for a total population of over 67 million. Although France's Muslim population far exceeds its Jewish population according to private studies, antisemitic acts far outnumbered Islamophobic acts in 2019 according to official government statistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commission on renewal and ethics in public life (France)</span> French government commission on renewal and ethics in public life

The French Commission on renewal and ethics in public life, nicknamed Jospin commission, was a think tank established in 2012 by President François Hollande to provide reforms in public life.

Online access to legal information was implemented in France in 1999 and complemented in 2002. In that regard, France has been at the forefront of Open Data in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Governor (Les Invalides, France)</span>

The Governor of Les Invalides is a French military personality and figure, named by the French Government to direct the institution of the Hôtel des Invalides of Paris.

The French New Code of Civil Procedure is the name used to refer to the Code gathering all laws related to civil procedure in France between 1975 and 2007. It is now simply referred to as the Civil Procedure Code.

The Second French Statute on the Status of Jews, of 2 June 1941, was an anti-semitic law enacted under Vichy France and signed into law by the Head of the French State, Marshal Philippe Pétain. It replaced the first Law on the status of Jews of 3 October 1940. It included an increasingly stringent definition of who was a Jew in France. It specified a legal definition, of the term Jewish race, broadening its criteria for inclusion and extending the scope of the existing professional prohibitions. From that point on, Jews in France became second-class citizens, while they had since 21 September 1791 been full citizens.

The Police ranks of French police officers denote the position of a given officer in the police hierarchy in French gendarmerie and police forces.

Adolphe Steg was a Czechoslovak-born French urologist and Holocaust survivor.

In France, the fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic are certain principles recognized by the Constitutional Council and the Council of State as having constitutional force.

The Tréveneuc Law was a law passed in the early days of the French Third Republic which established a legal framework by which the country could invoke a state of emergency in order to oppose a power grab by a rogue chief executive who illegitimately dissolved the National Assembly.

References

  1. ↑ Asensi, François (14 July 1990). "Loi n° 90-615 du 13 juillet 1990 tendant à réprimer tout acte raciste, antisémite ou xénophobe | Legifrance" [Law #90-615 of 13 July 1990 for the Suppression of Racist, Antisemitic, or Xenophobic Acts]. Legifrance (in French). Journal officiel de la République française. Art. 2 - On March 21st of each year, the date established by the U.N. for the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights provides the government with a report on the fight against racism. This report is immediately made public.
    Art. 2. - Le 21 mars de chaque année, date retenue par l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la Journée internationale pour l'élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination raciale, la Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme remet au Gouvernement un rapport sur la lutte contre le racisme. Ce rapport est immédiatement rendu public.
  2. ↑ Liauzu, Claude (1999). La société française face au racisme [French Society Face to Face with Racism] (in French). Editions Complexe. pp.  190. ISBN   978-2870277423.
  3. ↑ "Abrogation du décret-loi interdisant les insultes raciales", Loi du 27 août 1940, portant abrogation du décret-loi du 21 avril 1939 modifiant la loi du 29 juillet 1991, Journal officiel , 30 August 1940
  4. ↑ Gilles Devers, "Vichy: L'antisémitisme légalisé Archived 16 December 2019 at the Wayback Machine ", Actualité du droit, 25 July 2010
  5. ↑ "Ordonnance du 9 août 1944 relative au rétablissement de la légalité républicaine sur le territoire continental", Journal officiel
  6. ↑ former leader (1947–1953), before François Mitterrand, of the centrist Democratic and Socialist Union of the Resistance, then affiliated to various center-right splinter parliamentary groups
  7. ↑ Communication No 550/1993 : France. 16/12/96. CCPR/C/58/D/550/1993, Human Rights Committee, Fifty-eighth session, 21 October - 8 November 1996
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.