Arnaud Bouriant was a lawyer. He died Monday at the Palais Monclar in Aix-en-Provence. He collapsed shortly after 2 p.m., a few dozen minutes before the opening of the civil hearing for which he had come to plead. Victim of a heart attack, the 45-year-old man registered with the Paris bar was then evacuated and then quickly taken care of by the emergency services. Eventually, the man died an hour later, shocking the legal community.
The same evening, a controversy stirred the Web. On Twitter, a Marseille lawyer, present at the time of the events, is indignant at the conditions of her colleague’s disappearance. “The hearing continued in an adjoining room. I don’t know what has become of us.” she writes, stunned that the accident did not lead to a postponement. A widely relayed and commented tweet, which strongly reacted to Internet users.
Today a 45-year-old colleague collapsed in the middle of the hearing. He was taken care of. He is dead. The hearing continued in a side room. I don’t know what became of us. Thoughts to his loved ones.
— Ganette (@Ganette_) November 8, 2021
Jérôme Gavaudan, president of the Conseil national des barreaux, also publicly expressed his condolences on Twitter, adding that he would inquire about “the unfolding of events”. This Tuesday, the victim’s family and partner were received at the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal to review the chronology of events.
I am thinking of our Confrere, his family, his loved ones. I am also thinking of the respect for humanity and dignity due to all those who work in courthouses. I asked for additional information on the sequence of events.
— Gavaudan Jerome (@GavaudanJ) November 9, 2021
“There is only one thing to do: collect yourself”
It has been thirty years since Eric Ader knew Arnaud Bouriant, with whom he had partnered. “Brothers, but above all friends”, the two lawyers, who have been close since college, headed their own firm for eleven years, before committing together to found the “Ader-Jolibois” firm, recognized in the French real estate law landscape. He went to Aix-en-Provence on Tuesday, in the presence in particular of the chairman, in order to clarify the conditions of the tragedy. He explains : “When Arnaud collapsed, the hearing had not started, there had not yet been any pleadings, the magistrates were not in the room. The hearing was relocated without the seriousness of the situation being known. For the president, it was only a malaise. The two rooms, each located in different wings of the courthouse, could not communicate. It was only at the end of the hearing that the information concerning the death of the lawyer was transmitted.
Details confirmed in a press release from the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal, which states that the death was confirmed at 3:15 p.m. The hearing began at 2:30 p.m. “We must put the church back in the center of the village, adds Eric Ader. As much as we can clash when lawyers and magistrates do not agree, as much when the judicial community is in mourning and everything has been done and accomplished in the best conditions, there is only one thing to do: collect oneself in front of the pain of the family.
A minute of silence was observed this Tuesday at the Aix-en-Provence Court of Appeal during the opening of the hearing of the first chamber, in the presence of Eric Ader and the entire judicial community.
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