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Outspoken attorney facing charges of ethics violation
by The Daily Herald
Posted: Jun 6, 2007 15:22 UTC
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~ Attorneys strike, claim charges groundless ~
MARIGOT - Attorneys in Guadeloupe and St. Martin began strike action on Monday in support of well-known attorney Harry Durimel, who is facing charges in Guadeloupe of allegedly violating professional confidentiality.
Durimel, who has a secondary office in St. Martin, was arraigned by the judge in Pointe-à-Pitre, who filed a criminal procedure against him last week. The judge apparently changed the charge on Monday from violating the confidentiality of an investigation to the more serious charge of violating professional confidentiality.
Under French law, attorneys are bound not to reveal anything about an investigation while it is in progress.
The exact circumstances surrounding the charges, and how they arose, are not yet clear. However, it is understood that they stemmed from a drugs-related criminal case on which Durimel had been working.
Durimel has denied the charges and has taken his complaint to the Bar Association of Guadeloupe, of which he is a member.
“The board looked at all the facts and decided that the charges the judge wanted to hold him in violation of were unfounded,” said St. Martin-based attorney and Bar Association board of director’s member Patricia Chance-Duzant.
“Lawyers have appealed for the procedure to be annulled because of irregularities in the procedure itself. It’s a very delicate situation, but he has the right to an attorney. It is the judge who is investigating him, not just the police or the prosecutor.”
Because of the strike, cases that were scheduled to be heard in the Basse-Terre court on Tuesday have been postponed until September and October.
Chance-Duzant said Durimel specialised in criminal law and some politics.
“He is very outspoken. But I believe there is a move to discredit him and threaten him,” she said. “What is important is that the Bar Association has stood up and is refusing to let the powers that be intimidate lawyers who are trying their best to defend people. If we are being harassed we can’t work effectively as we should.”
Contacted late last night, Durimel said the allegations were connected to a case he had lost in 2004 when his client had been sentenced to two years in jail and the fact that he had taken the Government to court in March 2006, claiming it was slowly poisoning the local population through excessive use of pesticides in agriculture.
“This is a conspiracy against me. Why now, three years later, are they bringing these charges against me?” Durimel asked. “I am innocent of the charges and justice will prevail.”
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