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A month with Seconda
Welcome to the Seconda newsletter!
As we do every month, we share our latest news as well as that of our Secondants, we open up a debate on a point of law, and we introduce to an art work, a place or a person, related to the world of law, that has left a mark on us and we recommend to you!
Enjoy the read, and all your feedback is welcome!
What's new at Seconda?
We started the year under the southern sun, with two stops of the Seconda tour in Aix and Marseille.
Since December 2024, we have launched the Seconda Tour!
The concept?
A "tour de France" of regional bar associations where we invite our fellow lawyers to their favorite local spots bars, a stone's throw from the courthouses, to introduce them to Seconda over a convivial drink.
After Lyon on 12 December, we headed to Marseille on 22 January for festive evening drinks and to Aix-en-Provence on 23 January for an intimate breakfast, two special moments of exchange between passionate, enthusiastic lawyers !
We were lucky to be joined by Marie-Paule Melka, an attorney before the Conseil d'État and the Cour de cassation (French Suprême Courts) with SCP Melka Prigent Drusch, and by Gilles Merveilleux du Vignaux, a former member of the Bar and founder of Replick.
Next stop? Toulouse!
We are inviting our fellow members of the Toulouse Bar Association to join us for drinks on TuesdayMarch 4th, starting at 6:30 PM at ANTICA SALUMERIA, 1 Rue des Arts, 31000 Toulouse, and for breakfast on Thursday, March 6th, starting at 8:30 AM at Les Illustres, 9 Place du Capitole, 31000 Toulouse . Our guest this time will be Ronald Maman, an attorney before the Conseil d'État and the Cour de cassation, a true Occitan native now based in Paris.
And that's not all…
Law Geeks Trophy
The Law School of the University of Toulouse-Capitole will host the first edition of the "Law Geeks Trophy" organized as part of the Law Festival on an initiative of Seconda!
On 5 March, the Law School's students will form teams and go head to head in a three-round legal quiz, designed to test their legal knowledge under the supervision of specialist lawyers, members of academia and legal professionals.
The aim of this one-of-a-kind competition is to showcase legal knowledge, the quality of reasoning, the ability to synthesise and the skill of sustaining a legal argument across every area of the law.
Behind these first images, a new way of discovering Seconda is being prepared.
Seconda… take one… action!
Finally, on Friday 24 January, Néda and Fred-éric fulfilled a childhood dream come true: working the clapperboard, for real!
We invited four lawyers to spend the afternoon at a recording studio in the 17th arrondissement for an afternoon of filming.
Here are the first images from this very special afternoon, and we truly cannot wait to show you what comes out of it.
Bertrand Paillard, criminal defence lawyer, honed in legal technique alongside attorneys before the Conseil d'État and the Cour de cassation, and a defender of those no one listens to.
The SecondANT of the Month
This month, we present Bertrand Paillard
A doctor of law, trained in legal argument alongside attorneys before the Conseil d'État and the Cour de cassation, with whom he still works today, Bertrand is as at ease raising his voice in the courtroom as he is setting his pen loose in written submissions.
On the technical side? Bertrand has just overhauled the JurisClasseur Pénal fascicle on "Criminal Penalties Applicable to Natural Persons", which he already authored.
On the practical side? An all-terrain criminal lawyer, Bertrand is these days moving between white-collar offences and white-coat crimes.
Bertrand defends investors swindled by cryptocurrency gurus, the new El Dorado of financial fraud since traditional markets were brought under tighter regulation.
Bertrand also stands alongside victims of rape and sexual assault in the hospital sector. The same pattern as in the film or communications industries: one victim steps forward, speaks out and frees the voices of all the others who suffered the same conduct but stayed silent, held back by omerta.
And Bertrand does not confine himself to defending humans. A fierce opponent of animal cruelty, he also knows how to give a voice to those who have none!
Question of the month
Granting legal personality to natural entities: an appropriate solution?
This month, we are examining the attribution of legal personality to natural entities.
On "30 September 2022, the Spanish Parliament adopted a law granting legal personality to the Mar Menor lagoon, the largest saltwater lagoon in Europe.
The law was driven by the residents of the Murcia region, exasperated at watching "their" lagoon suffer serious ecological disruption caused by human activity.
What did the law bring?
It granted the lagoon several rights: the right to exist as an ecosystem and to evolve naturally, and the right to protection, conservation and restoration in the event of harm. It also created three committees to enforce those rights.
This was without taking into account the referral to the Spanish Constitutional Court by a group of deputies. They argued that nature cannot not be a subject of law, because the notion of a subjective right is inextricably linked to that of dignity, and dignity is a purely human attribute.
20 November 2024: The appeal was dismissed. The Court held that granting legal personality to the Mar Menor did not undermine human dignity but, on the contrary, reinforced it. The Court found that a dignified life is only possible in suitable natural environments, for present and future generations, and that the very idea of human dignity places humankind in symbiosis with an environment they may transform, but must not destroy, precisely in order to preserve this dignity.
A decision that invites reflection
The Court set out two major approches to protecting the environment: on the one hand, granting rights to nature, which is then treated as the holder of these rights (as in the Ecuadorian constitution adopted in 2008), on the other hand, recognising a legal personality in specific ecosystems (such as the Mar Menor or the Whanganui River in New Zealand).
In France, one might question how useful resorting to legal personality really is, given the existing tools: nature parks and Natura 2000 zones zones to manage natural areas, and ecological harm to make a good damage to the environmental.
We are familiar with the controversies historically stirred up by granting legal personality to groups and associations. They have lost much of their edge, so firmly is the concept of the legal person now settled in positive law.
What, then, of legal personality for natural entities? Is it a relevant, perhaps even essential, route to protecting natural environments from the harm caused by human activity? Or is it, on the contrary, an inappropriate, or simply unnecessary, one?
The debate is open.
Our Secondants in the news
Pierre-Claver Kamgaing breaks down rulings from the CCJA, a Cameroonian decree and a ruling from the Second Civil Chamber.
Pierre-Claver Kamgaing
Pierre-Claver, our expert in Cameroonian law and OHADA law, has published two case-law analyses of decisions of the OHADA Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA), together with a breakdown of a Cameroonian decree in issue no. 2 of L'Essentiel Droits africains des affaires (February 2025) :
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Only the court may set the new rent under a professional-use lease where the parties have reached no written agreement ⇒ CCJA, 1st Chamber, 1 Feb. 2024, no. 027/2024.
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A seizure may reach only assets belonging exclusively to the debtor ⇒ CCJA, 3rd Chamber, 28 March 2024, no. 095/2024.
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Cameroon: renaming and reorganisation of the National Radiation Protection Agency ⇒ Decree no. 2024/599 of 19 Nov. 2024, renaming the National Radiation Protection Agency.
Working more broadly in procedural law, Pierre-Claver also wrote an article titled "Challenging a lawyer's fees: clarifications on time limits and on the adversarial principle", published in Les Petites Affiches (January 2025).
Aurore Sauviat is involved in every AI-related initiatives.
Aurore Sauviat
Aurore, lawyer in new-technology law, personal-data law and intellectual property law, had the honour of a double-page feature in the January 2025 issue of IALS Magazine, devoted to the women of AI!
The magazine can be downloaded here.
AOn 6 February, Aurore then took part in the Meet Up panel discussion at 104 Factory on AI & Creativity, which you can catch as a podcast.
Finally, on 11 February, Aurore joined a panel at the Théâtre de l'IA, during the AI Summit in Paris, organised by LUXE-INTELLIGENC.IA
Marie Fernet launches her firm dedicated to customs law, along with her newsletter.
Marie Fernet
Marie , a doctor of law and lawyer specialising in customs law, decided to hang out her own shingle on 1 February ! You can find her on her new website!
And on 21 February, Marie is hosting a webinar on the theme "E-commerce and imports: making sense of the European Commission's announcements".
A film, an exhibition, a restaurant…
A film crew was granted exceptional permission to follow a trial before the Nantes cour criminelle in a gripping case that, sadly, illustrates all too well our society's relationship with the notion of consent and with the very definition of rape and the myths surrounding it.
The documentary Viol, défi de Justice (Rape, a challenge for Justice) opts for a naturalistic, intimate style to unpack how hard it is for the justice system to deal with this very particular crime, one that so often takes place, as in this case, behind closed doors. The viewer is then left, like everyone involved in the trial, with nothing but the word of those concerned.
The documentary can be found on Dailymotion and until 21 February on the France TV platform.
Thank you for reading.
That's everything for this month. See you next month!
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See you very soon!
Fred-Eric and Neda