Politics & Power Quote by Jacques Verges

The line lands like a procedural fact, but Verges uses it as a moral tripwire. In a democracy, accusation is supposed to be impersonal: not a mob’s finger-pointing, not a ruler’s decree, but a formal document signed by a public official acting in the name of the people. By foregrounding the paperwork, Verges isn’t being dry; he’s being surgical. He’s reminding you that the state’s violence begins as language. The first blow is a sentence.

Verges, famous for turning trials into political theaters, is also smuggling in a warning: when the “public attorney” speaks, it’s easy to hear neutral justice, when it may be ideology wearing a robe. Calling it a document emphasizes how legitimacy gets manufactured. It’s not that democracies can’t persecute; it’s that they can do it with impeccable formatting.

The subtext is about ownership of blame. “Public” sounds comforting, communal. Verges points out the sting: if the prosecutor acts for the public, then the public inherits responsibility for what follows - pretrial detention, stigma, ruined lives, even execution. The document is a receipt.

Context matters because Verges built a career defending the indefensible and defending anti-colonial militants, insisting that courts are never just courts; they’re mirrors of power. Here he’s challenging democratic self-congratulation: you don’t get innocence simply because your accusations come with letterhead. You get a better kind of danger - one that can claim it’s only following procedure.