Magistrates challenge the practices of the Comptroller General of Prisons

It is an unprecedented attack against the Controller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL) by magistrates. The Syndicate Union of Magistrates (USM), their main union, seized the Minister of Justice of practices which seem to him “stepping out of its role as an independent administrative authority”. In a letter sent during the summer to Eric Dupond-Moretti, Céline Parisot, president of the USM, denounces “an unacceptable encroachment into the sphere of the jurisdictional act”.

The starting point of this war of interpretation about the role of the CGLPL is the visit of a team of controllers to two of the four penitentiary establishments in Polynesia, Faa’a-Nuutania and Tatutu, in the city of Papeari, in May 2022. Dominique Simonnot, the Comptroller General, wrote on 1^er June to the Minister of Justice to alert him to findings made on the spot. In this letter not intended to be made public, that The world was able to read, are mentioned “malfunctions” at the Papeete court which “result in serious violations of the fundamental rights of detainees”.

This letter relates for example “humanly unacceptable situations”, a consequence of the understaffing in the service of the execution of sentences of the Papeete prosecutor’s office. Like the case of detainees who have reached the end of their sentence, awaited by their families in front of the prison on the day announced for their release, to whom they are notified of the execution “of a previous and sometimes old sentence, while the court services have been informed of it for weeks, even months”.

These are especially the observations drawn up by Mr.^me Simonnot on the application of sentences and the adjustments that make the USM jump. The union recovered the letter of 1^er June through its own networks.

“It’s my job”

“The sentence adjustment policy is also illegible, excessively restrictive and completely out of step with the spirit of the justice programming law”, writes the Comptroller General. And to cite a rejection rate of 80% of requests for release under duress or “requirements which are not provided for by any text of law” imposed on detainees applying for temporary absence, such as the monthly payment to civil parties or the public treasury of 30% to 50% of their resources, “even for the needy”. Practices in terms of additional sentence reductions are judged “rigid and excessively severe”.

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As the Polynesian jurisdiction has only one sentence enforcement judge, these criticisms were read by the USM as attacks ad hominem. “The mission of the CGLPL is not to say that judges do good or bad”insists Cécile Mamelin, vice-president of the USM, according to whom the colleague from Papeete has since been summoned by her court leaders.

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