Scientology invokes religious freedom before the Court of Cassation
September 4, 2013
AFP
At the Court of Cassation today, the Church of Scientology vigorously contested the conviction of its two main French entities for "organized fraud," calling it a "violation of religious freedom."
Before the Criminal Chamber, the attorneys representing Scientology, which is classified as a cult in several French parliamentary reports but is considered a religion in the United States and in some European countries, raised many arguments in their attempt to annul the February 2, 2012 verdict of the Paris Court of Appeal.
This decision upheld the conviction of Scientology's two Parisian entities, the Scientology Celebrity Centre and its SEL bookshop, and their respective fines of 200,000 and 400,000 euros.
The Court of Appeal convicted five Scientologists who stood accused of exploiting the vulnerability of former recruits to extract large sums of money.
One the convicted Scientologists, Alain Rosenberg, the "de facto leader" of Scientology in Paris, and Sabine Jacquart, a former president of the Celebrity Centre, were handed a two-year suspended sentence and fined 30,000 euros for organized fraud.
"It is rare for a church to be called a criminal organization and be convicted on the grounds that the message it conveys is a fraud," Scientology attorney Louis Boré told the Court of Cassation today.
According to him, the Court of Appeal's decision "chooses between good and bad religions" and it is inappropriate for the court to "turn itself into an inquisition tribunal" and start differentiating "true believers" from "false believers."
"There is a campaign to discredit the Church of Scientology," he said, "but a religion is a cult that has succeeded."
Using comparisons with Islam, Judaism, and Christianity to make his points, with an occasional sprinkling of humor, Louis Boré argued that the electrometer, an expensive instrument that is supposed to measure "changes in a person's mind or state of mind," is "no stranger than a rosary or a kippa."
"No church is prosecuted on the grounds that the message it conveys is false," he added.
"What you have just said does not enter into the train of thought of a judge in a court of law," retorted Claire Waquet, an attorney representing the UNADFI [National Union of Associations for the Defense of Families and Individuals], a counter-cult organization that is contesting Scientology's appeal of the decision to include the UNADFI as a civil party.
"The issue before the Criminal Chamber is not to decide whether Scientology is or is not a religion," she said.
The trial and the conviction were based "solely on violations of criminal law," insisted the prosecutor, who argued for the dismissal of the appeal, except for a minor point, the allocation of damages to a civil party who withdrew from the case.
The judge's job is to defend "citizens who have become captive parishioners of organized fraudsters who shamelessly plunder people of their money using any and all means."
The defendants' lawyers also attacked many decisions made during the investigation and contested the conduct of the trial, from which the defendants and their lawyers walked out during the sixth day of hearings.
They also discussed the definition of medication in an attempt to overturn the convictions for the "illegal practice of pharmacy." After undergoing personality tests that in most cases give negative results, followers are obliged to take purification sessions and are prescribed vitamin treatments.
"There is a real violation of religious freedom," lamented Éric Roux, spokesman for Scientology in France, after today's hearing.
The Court of Cassation will hand down its decision on October 16.