Toulouse confronted with extreme and organized violence: justice takes the hit as it can
Through David Saint-Sernin
Published on
” From the outside, Toulouse, it seems quiet. It is the city that is seen as a good place to live, with a good quality of life. And if it is true that the economic dynamic is good there, that people come to live in Toulouse, this city is not quiet. It is a metropolis in tension with phenomena of delinquency, organized delinquency… We will find ourselves faced with kidnappings and settling of scores. We have seen it for a long time in Marseilles and in the Parisian suburbs and it is a reality that must now be faced In Toulouse “
The finding of the public prosecutor of Toulouse, Samuel Vuelta Simoncarried out on Wednesday February 9, 2022, is without appeal.
Sexual assault, rape: sharp increases
Toulouse is in the red. A state that is reflected in certain figures.
Person-to-person users, for example, are on the rise. Sexual assault, rape: the figures tripled between 2018 and 2021. Rape cases brought to justice in Toulouse: 779 in 2021 compared to 213 in 2018. Sexual assault cases brought to justice in Toulouse: 861 in 2021 compared to 290 in 2018.
Decision every 8 minutes
Faced with this finding of escalation of violence on a daily basis in Toulouse, local justice is sweating a lot… Shortage of clerks, shortage of magistrates, there are many shortcomings…
“To win this fight, you need weapons and soldiers. In Toulouse, our employees are in short supply to lead the fight. Our weapon is the law. And there, we are seized of new skills, but with constant means ”, is alarmed the prosecutor who details:
” Those are 3000 calls received each month by our teams. That’s 100 a day and a decision made every eight minutes. Or, behind this decision taken in 8 minutes, it is the lives of people, of the perpetrators, like the victims, which is at stake. Is 8 minutes enough to make such decisions? I don’t meet him.”
An emergency lane used
To absorb the surplus of cases and “a bogged down judicial situation” the public prosecutor’s office, multiply the procedures for deferment, or the transfer of the perpetrator of the offense from the police station to the courthouse, just after police custody.
This accelerated criminal procedure was used 3,316 times in 2021, an increase of 12%.
Despite the use of this “emergency route”, the processing time of a case is considered “catastrophic” by the prosecutor.
The time of the court decision deemed “catastrophic”
“To render a criminal or civil decision, between the moment when the facts are committed and the judgment, it takes 14 to 15 months on average, it is catastrophic. The condemnation to a pedagogical virtue, when one condemns more than a year later, one is not good”.
This state of affairs helps to strain relations within the institution.
“The embers have not been extinguished since the movement of last December, there is a fed up, with a phenomenon of departure”, indicates Xavier Pavageauthe president of the court.
As a reminder, lawyers, magistrates and clerks gathered on December 15, 2021, in the hall of the courthouse to demand more resources.
Additional means
Samuel Vuelta-Simon believes that it would be necessary to reach, in Toulouse, a threshold of 153 prosecutors …compared to 27 currentlyso that justice is done in good conditions.
Supporting figures, for him, it is necessary to be at the height of other European countries, to have 153 prosecutors in Toulouse, against 27 at present. Solicited by the chancellery, without illusions, he asked for eight more.
Xavier Pavageau, for his part, is asking for the arrival of some thirty judges and fifty court clerks.
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