when the administrative judge makes it possible to improve the conditions of detention

This is a first and perhaps the beginning of a new procedural way to shake things up in the most run down or overcrowded prisons. The judge in chambers of the administrative court of Toulouse ordered, on August 2, 2022, the Ministry of Justice to restore within fifteen days the toilets of the courtyard of the Seysses remand center (Haute-Garonne) and distribute cockroach traps twice a month.

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The novelty does not lie in these two injunctions. The list of measures ordered for ten years by the administrative jurisdictions seized by prisoners of various prisons is long. But they were hardly followed up, to the point that the condemnation of France in 2020 by the European Court of Human Rights was motivated in particular by the lack of an effective remedy against conditions of detention contrary to dignity. human.

Benches, playgrounds, cleaning…

This decision of August 2, on the other hand, makes it possible to see all that the prison administration has implemented to comply with the nine injunctions that the same court had pronounced on October 4, 2021. The installation of benches in the courtyards or the creation of shelter courtyards have not yet been carried out, but the public call for competition was launched in June and the contract signed on July 26… on the eve of the summary hearing; a new protocol for cleaning the courtyards and their toilets before the “outing” has been defined and ten auxiliary posts (paid work offered to prisoners) have been opened for this purpose; a market has been notified to install hinged doors to the toilets in the collective cells in order to ensure a minimum of privacy; etc

All these small improvements which concern daily life, in an occupied prison at 1^er July at 158% of its capacity and with one of the highest rates of mattresses on the ground in the penitentiary park, were possible thanks to the procedural strategy concocted by the International Observatory of Prisons (OIP) with the Bar Association From toulouse. Taking advantage of the possibility created by the law for confidence in the judicial institution of December 22, 2021, the President of the Bar unexpectedly visited the establishment on May 11 and noted the non-execution of certain injunctions of the first ordinance. It is on this sole basis that the Toulouse court authorized itself to hold the prison administration to account and to hold a new hearing on July 27. This undoubtedly exerted pressure to initiate or accelerate certain requested measures.