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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Yves Bot, Longtime French Prosecutor & EU Magistrate, Dead at 71

Yves Bot, a magistrate these past 13 years with the European Court of Justice, died Sunday. He was 71.

(CN) - Yves Bot, a magistrate these past 13 years with the European Court of Justice, died Sunday. He was 71.

“Mr. Yves Bot was a staunch defender of the values of the European Union and worked throughout his career both to make the justice system more humane and to bring it closer to the people whom it serves,” the Luxembourg-based court said in a statement Tuesday.

France’s Ministry of Justice confirmed Bot’s death as well, noting that the country was “los[ing] a very great magistrate.”

Bot was a lifelong former prosecutor who obtained law degree at Rouen, followed by his doctorate in law at the University of Paris.

After a few years with the law faculty at Le Mans, Bot began working with the prosecutor's office of Le Mans, going on to become public prosecutor at the Regional Court of Dieppe followed by deputy public prosecutor at the Strasbourg Regional Court, public prosecutor at the Bastia Regional Court and advocate general at the Caen Court of Appeal, before returning to Le Mans in 1991 as public prosecutor.

Bot was appointed in 1993 to special adviser to the to the Minister of State, two years later to public prosecutor at the Nanterre Regional Court, and in 2002 to public prosecutor at the Paris Regional Court. 

He served as principal state prosecutor at the Paris Court of Appeal from 2004 to 2006, at which time he joined the Court of Justice of the European Union as an advocate general.

“He has exercised the most prestigious functions of the public prosecutor's office, marking his exercise with the stamp of the very great mastery of public prosecutors and a strong sense of public action,” the French Ministry of Justice said in a statement that has been translated into English.

“[A] team leader, he knew how to pool energies and to bring everyone together on his side,” the statement continues. “He has touched generations of magistrates with his professionalism, always tinged with humor, his ability to deal with the most complex situations with serenity and a reassuring sang-froid that he knew how to keep in all circumstances.”

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Categories / Courts, International, Law

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