Paper and State - Burdens of Proof - page 128

the profession, both at the material level, through the deployment of the
notarial PKI, and at more conceptual levels, through the development of
a new legal concept of electronic authenticity.
Notaries could deploy considerable resources in the service of these
objectives. The modern French notarial profession is wealthy and well
organized. 16 The basis of that wealth is a monopoly granted by the state,
whereby real estate contracts — buying, selling, exchanging, dividing,
bequeathing, mortgaging — must be manufactured by a notary. A number
of other acts are often formalized by notaries, even though the law
does not formally require it. Wills, for example, are legally valid as long as
they are written and signed in the hand of the testator, but often benefit
from notarial authenticity, which testifies to the free and informed consent
of the individual in stating his last wishes. About half of the individuals
who enter notarial offices do so for matters related to real estate; a quarter
do so for donations, wills, and marriage contracts. Notarial business is
thus firmly established on its lucrative monopolistic base, with a global
revenue half that of lawyers, a profession that counts ten times as many
practitioners.
In addition to France, the notarial system is established in sixty-one
different nations across four continents — among others, Italy, Spain,
Germany, Russia, most of the former African and Asian colonies of France,
and almost all of South and Central America. China adopted the notarial
system in the late 1980s, as part of the reform of its justice system (although
not as a liberal profession). Absent from this list are countries of common-
law tradition, in which notaries perform a much simpler procedure of
certification of documents and signatures. 17 Notaries thus perceive the
hegemonic potential of common-law institutions through globalization
processes such as those enabled by the EU and UNCITRAL as the single
most important threat to their existence. The International Union of Latin
Law Notaries (UINL) represents the profession at these bodies and others,
including the World Trade Organization and the European Parliament.
The electronic signature bill, the most significant update to French
evidence rules since the enactment of the Civil Code, represented a unique
occasion to demonstrate the profession's continued relevance. Notaries
were in a particularly good position to argue their case: Alain Lambert, past
president of the Conseil supérieur and a driving force behind the develop-
ment of new technologies within the profession, held a seat at the Senate.