Jacques Verges and "Rupture Defense"

Jacques Verges bases his defense on a system defined as “rupture defense” in which the defendant accuses those who have put him on trial and calls public opinion as his defense witness.

An interview with Jacques Verges:

April 2009: Osama Bin Laden has just been captured by the US army in the mountains of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. He puts up no resistance. He chooses you as his defense counsel. Would you accept? How would you conduct the “rupture defense” for the man responsible for September 11th? What would you prepare as a line of defense?

There is no doubt I would accept. In this case, the line of defense is an easy one. You in the West occupy part of the Muslim community materially, and the totality, spiritually, because all the Heads of State and Kings are pawns under your control. We wage war against you, just as you bring war against us. The attacks that we commit are no different from the bombings and embargoes suffered by our civilian victims.

After the invasion of Iraq by the US army, a news flash announces that in a country in North Africa, a movement is underway to bring the most powerful man in the world, the American President George W. Bush, to trial. Naturally, a trial of this kind would be impossible today except in one place: on the stage of a theatre. Even more, it would not be possible in a state-owned theatre, but only in a private theatre, the Théâtre de la Madeleine. You have declared that you would assume Bush’s defense. On what would you base his defense? What explanations would you give for the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and for Guantanamo Bay? Once again, in this case what would you use as your “rupture defense” in a case against George Bush?

A trial against Bush could not be a “rupture defense” case because his actions are in line with Western moral ethics. There is a world of Good, which is ours, and a world of Evil, that of the others, and the planet is too small for both to coexist. It is essential that one of the two be eliminated. Since we are the stronger force, the other world must be the one to disappear. And it is by no means surprising that our methods are not coherent with what we state we believe in, because in conditions of war, the rules that are applied are not those that exist in times of normality.


When you state that the role of the defense counsel should go so far as to give some meaning to the life of the accused, doesn’t that unmask you as an unexpected humanist?

If, by humanism, you intend the fact of considering human beings as a unique end in themselves, then yes, I am a humanist. But when humanism becomes humanitarianism, and that humanitarianism provides the right to judge others based on the ideal image one has of oneself, then I am not a humanist. The true humanist is a pacifist. The “humanitarian” is an aggressor in good faith.

--> so far, this is the only law practice(r) that I found truly subversive without taking a given "constitution" or whatever framework basis for granted.