The Council of State canceled on Friday April 23 the obligation made to the prison administration to carry out urgent work at the Lorient-Ploemeur prison center (Morbihan), whose remand center is in a situation of permanent overcrowding, according to an order consulted Thursday by AFP.
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Seized by the order of lawyers of the Nantes bar and the French section of the International Prison Observatory, the Rennes administrative court ordered the State, on March 17, to do work in the prison. This work consisted in particular of installing an intercom system in all the cells of the remand center, bringing them up to electrical standards, carrying out an asbestos diagnosis of all the buildings, and partitioning the prison. 'space reserved for the toilets in the cells, improving the natural ventilation of the cells, the daily collection of garbage cans, etc ... The administrative judge had also asked the prison administration to ensure that'no inmate sleeps on a mattress on the floor in the remand center.
In its order of April 23, consulted by AFP, the Council of State invalidated all the decisions of the summary judge, considering that some of the parties' requests fall under structural measures, which go beyond the powers of the judge. referred. He recalls that the latter rules on requests justified by urgency and orders emergency measures likely to have an effect in the short term. The Council of State also justifies its decision by the fact that the management of the penitentiary center has put in place temporary corrective measures while waiting for work, such as the intercom system, to be carried out. Maintenance work on ventilation is also planned for May 2021 before structural work in 2022.
The ordinance also notes that an audit carried out in 2020 did not detect an anomaly in the electrical installation of the cells likely to generate a fire risk. Regarding asbestos, the Council of State emphasizes that asbestos removal from the establishment is listed "
among the operations programmed
" by the establishment.
Regarding the presence of detainees sleeping on the floor on mattresses, the highest administrative court recalls that prisons are required to accommodate any new detainee and that at the date of the hearing, on April 14, two people were sleeping in the floor on a mattress, at their request. "
During this hearing, the director of the penitentiary center confirmed that a cell of three would be offered to those concerned as soon as possible
", specifies the Council of State.