Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target

Guy- Jean -Baptiste Target (December 6, 1733 in Paris, † September 9, 1807 in Les Molière ) was a French lawyer and politician. He played an important role in the legal and political discourse on the way to the French Revolution. As a Member of the Constituent Assembly, he has greatly contributed to the formulation of the Constitution of 1791. Later he worked under Napoleon at the Civil Code and the Penal Code.

Before the Revolution

His father was a lawyer and member of the Parlement of Paris. Since 1752 he also served on the. He subsequently rose to become one of the most important lawyers in the capital. He also served as a member of commissions on judicial reform. Since 1785, he was a member of the Académie française. He was involved in the 1787 Edict of Versailles in favor of the non-Catholics.

Target protested in 1771 against the Justizfeformen of René- Nicolas -Charles -Augustin de Maupeou and was back in 1785 by Cardinal Rohan in the collar affair. He exaggerated the conditions of detention of his client and also played with other pathways consisting of emotions arguments. For legal reform debates just before the Revolution, he pleaded as chairman of a Parlementsausschusses for a reprieve for those sentenced to death, so that a revision or a pardon by the King would be. But that he could not prevail.

Target participated in the political discourse of the pre-revolutionary time intensive part. He belonged in 1788 to a minority of the members of the parliamentary investigation that argued for that in the future Estates General, the third level must be at least as well represented as the first and second stand together. Similarly, the group called for voting by heads and not on stands. This showed the Societé des Trente (Society of Thirty ). This also Persönlichkeuten as Mirabeau, Sieyes, Talleyrand or were represented.

Target had broken with the Conservatives in Parliament and took cases that were likely to criticize the regime. This was the case for example in the case of the rose queen of the village Salency. So far, the village mayor had the right to choose the queen. When the local landlord claimed this right for themselves, the village appealed to the Parlement. Target stylized in case high as a struggle between Umschuld and violence. Similarly wait stored other cases, which he took over in 1788.

The adoption of the majority of the Parliaments' that France had a kind of unwritten constitution, which would have to defend the Parlement, he refused. He said if you were standing at the zero point and must create a constitution only. This idea was a little later to the majority of Parliaments'.

Since the revolution

In 1789 he was elected as representatives of the Third Estate in the Estates General. In the following, he was a leading member of the Constitutional Committee in the National Assembly. He has driven the emergence of the Declaration of Human and Civil Rights with advanced or advocated for the end of feudal privileges. He was one of the principal authors of the Constitution of 1791. He has pleaded among other things, for a unicameral parliament and for a suspensive veto of the king. He has established that the constitutional monarch was no longer referred to as roi de France et Navarre but as roi de francais. The UK should no longer appear as a property of a single individual. Not least, he stood up for the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. It was in January 1790 President of the National Assembly.

At times he was a member of the Jacobin Club, but since the fall of 1790 took no more part in their meetings. He supported the advance of Maximilian Robespierre, that the deputies of the Constituent National Assembly were not allowed to be members of the Legislative Assembly. After he retired from politics. After his dismissal Louis XIV Target asked that this should defend him in the upcoming trial. He declined the offer with regard to his health from.

He supported Napoleon's seizure of power. Between 1798 and his death was one target as a judge at the tribunal Cassation. He has also contributed to the emergence of the Civil Code. In particular, he devoted himself to the Criminal Code. He belonged since 1802 to the tribunate.