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Coronavirus: justice subject to a complaint by magistrates

2020-03-30T18:16:00.475Z


The Union Magistrate FO union filed a complaint on Saturday against X for endangering the lives of others. He denounces the ineffectiveness, even the ineffectiveness


It is the first complaint against the Ministry of Justice since the start of the coronavirus crisis. While the number of contaminated civil servants rose from 1250 to 1821 in one week, the magistrates' union FO filed a complaint on Saturday against X for endangering the lives of others with the Paris prosecutor's office. In recent days, prison unions or associations had initiated applications for interim measures for the closure of detention centers, the exhaustive requisition of masks and the generalization of screening tests. Appeals all rejected for now by the Council of State.

Through this complaint, Unit FO Magistrates, a minority trade union organization among magistrates, intends to remind "its obligations" to the Ministry of Justice, with regard to its agents, both in terms of safety at work but also of prevention. In question the lack of masks, gloves and hydroalcoholic gels and the absence of screening actions. This leads, according to the union, to the exposure of active magistrates to a high risk of contamination.

"Place Vendôme (Editor's note: seat of the ministry) posed in principle that barrier gestures are enough to protect judges from contagion" denounces Béatrice Brugère, secretary general of Unit Magistrates FO. “However, the exponential increase in the number of contaminated civil servants demonstrates the ineffectiveness, even the inexistence, of the ministerial protection system. "

A finding, all the more overwhelming, according to the union, that the Ministry of Justice fulfills sovereign missions and participates in the Defense and National Security Council. This obliges it, notes the same union, to a duty of anticipation of crises for which it is endowed with all the necessary means.

Magistrates, without masks, without gloves ...

In the complaint that we were able to consult, the cabinet TTLA and associates observes that "essential protective measures" were notably dictated by the World Health Organization. However "these measures are not applied, despite the alarming statistics relating to the spread of this virus, as regards the protection of magistrates who ensure the continuity of public service". Hence the offense of endangering the life of others.

The summons refers in particular to the situation of the Investigation Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal which is said to be particularly degraded. Its activity has been reduced to the management of urgent disputes, in particular that relating to pre-trial detention, as part of the business continuity plan.

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The management of this litigation would have forced the magistrates to maintain the thirteen already fixed hearings which took place in the week following the confinement even though the so-called "barrier" measures would not have been respected. The magistrates who do not have masks, gloves, gels or wipes, notes the complaint, were also deprived of water in the sanitary facilities for five days, between March 19 and 23 ...

The complaint of Unit FO Magistrates echoes the concerns of the Paris bar which has decided to stop all jurisdictional activity for overriding reasons of public health. In its press release, the Bar Council stated that it had rendered this decision after having "regretfully noted, despite several alerts from the Bâtonnier and the Vice-Bâtonnière […], that nothing is planned to provide lawyers with the technical and to continue to exercise the right of defense, a fundamental requirement of a fair trial ".

The Council affirms to be "concerned about the unsatisfactory sanitary conditions for the exercise of the missions of the magistrates, clerks, interpreters, and the whole of the personnel but also for the litigants".

This morning, during a meeting between the Keeper of the Seals and all the unions of justice officials, it was reported that some surgical masks - whose rubber band is expired - were available in the courts since Saturday. However, it was clarified that the order of masks for magistrates would come in a second time, depending on the availability of manufacturing. During this meeting, the Keeper of the Seals, Nicole Belloubet, announced the worrying hospitalization of a clerk of the tribunal de grande instance in Orléans (Loiret). Friday, a supervisor of the penitentiary center of Orleans-Saran, died at his home while he was on sick leave for suspicion of Covid-19. The Keeper of the Seals recalled the worrying situation of this penitentiary center where two prisoners of the establishment are declared positive.

Source: leparis

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