The Pas-de-Calais prefecture has lodged an appeal against the conviction of the prefect by the Douai Court of Appeal for having freed himself from the judicial authority during the dismantling of a migrant camp in Calais, considering that the case depended on administrative justice.
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The court of appeal "
did not grant our request
" to "
declare itself incompetent to hear a dispute which falls within the administrative jurisdiction
", indicated the prefecture to AFP.
"
The prefecture, in this context, notified the registry of the Court of Appeal on April 5 of a conflict order
".
"
It is now up to the conflict court
", a jurisdiction bringing together in Paris members of the Council of State and the Court of Cassation, "
to assign this dispute to the judicial or administrative jurisdiction
", she added.
The prefect sentenced for "assault"
In its judgment of March 24, the Court of Appeal condemned the prefect for "
assault
", accusing him of having taken the initiative of the expulsion on September 29, 2020 from the Virval camp, and temporarily deprived of their freedom. occupants of the site -- more than 800 candidates for passage to the United Kingdom -- without an adequate legal framework.
The applicants, 11 exiles and eight associations for the defense of migrants, including Secours Catholique and the Auberge des Migrants, had summoned the prefect in December 2020, asking that the evacuation be deemed "
illegal
".
At first instance, on January 6, 2021, the Boulogne-sur-Mer court declared itself incompetent, the prefecture having requested referral to the administrative court.
In the immediate future, the prefectural appeal suspends the settlement of the question of the damages claimed by the applicants, according to their lawyer, Me Eve Thieffry.
“
The issue is so political that it is understandable that the prefecture is considering all the remedies
,” she commented for AFP.
According to her, the prefect's conviction undermined the recurrent use by the State to carry out evictions from migratory camps on the northern coast of the legal framework of "
flagrancy
" - applicable when an offense has been observed for less than 48 hours.
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The prefect claimed to have acted on the decision of the prosecutor, the day after the opening of an investigation in “
flagrance
” on the presence of 450 tents.
On the contrary, the court considered that he had acted on his own initiative and that both the scale of the camp and that of the evacuation operation contradicted the hypothesis "
of the discovery of the offense the day before
" of the evacuation.
According to the court, the prefecture should therefore have requested the authorization of the administrative judge to proceed with the evacuation.