The comptroller general of places of deprivation of liberty Dominique Simonnot denounces “serious violations of fundamental rights” by the police during police custody of people arrested in Paris in demonstrations against the pension reform.
In a letter dated April 17 addressed to the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin and of which AFP has read, Dominique Simonnot ridicules a “massive appeal” by the police to arrests and police custody “preventive”.
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“Some agents, she writes, had had “instructions and hierarchical orders to question without distinction” anyone in one sector or another of the capital. »
Pension reform: revelations on worrying dysfunctions observed during police custody of young demonstrators
In his response dated May 2, consulted by AFP, Gérald Darmanin argues that the controller “exceeds its powers, in particular when it denounces “the instrumentalization of police custody measures for repressive purposes””.
From the start of the challenge to the pension reform, associations, political parties, magistrates and lawyers denounced “preventive arrests” during demonstrations. On March 21, the Defender of Rights Claire Hédon was also alarmed by these arrests. On several occasions, the prefect of police of Paris Laurent Nuñez has taken issue with these accusations: “Preventive arrests do not exist. »
Procedures “in violation of the applicable texts”
In view of “many arrests”Dominique Simonnot explains that he “urgently ordered visits to certain police custody premises in Paris”. Therefore “on March 24 and 25, three teams of controllers visited nine Parisian police stations to check the conditions of care for people arrested” et “ensure respect for their fundamental rights”.
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The conclusion of these checks is damning, the Comptroller General reporting “serious violations of the fundamental rights of detained persons”. Firstly “due to the material conditions of care in certain premises” and on the other hand because “the large number of procedures conducted in disregard of the standards and principles governing the procedure of police custody, even, in certain situations, in violation of the applicable texts”.
She thus denounces “irregularities in the documents relating to the arrest and lack of elements allowing the characterization of the offense or attempted offense in question”. “These shortcomings, affecting the procedural documents, she adds, are particularly alarming. »
80% of procedures closed without follow-up
The Controller further notes that while “80% of the procedures are closed without further action once the control of the judicial authority has been carried out, the minority of the persons referred (…) leave the court free”.
“If a policeman caught clubbing for no reason was immediately sanctioned, it would cool more than one”
The Minister challenges Dominique Simonnot’s reasoning, arguing that the search for evidence to establish individual responsibility during “collective scenes of violence” East “Often hampered by the defendants who are experienced in investigative techniques”. For him, the fact that the judicial authority then considers the offenses “as insufficiently characterized” does not mean “in no way an absence of initial offence”.
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Dominique Simonnot, for his part, considers that the “instructions given by the police headquarters and the Paris public prosecutor’s office in particular (…) reveal a massive recourse, as a preventive measure, to the deprivation of liberty for the purpose of maintaining public order”.
For the Comptroller General, “this approach to policing reveals not only an instrumentalization of police custody measures for repressive purposes but also a diversion of the role of the judicial authority whose role (…) is not to guarantee legal certainty police measures, a fortiori when they are knowingly taken in disregard of the law”.
