21 volunteer mowers tried on appeal in Toulouse for damage to garden centers
After being acquitted by the Foix court in 2021, 21 voluntary mowers were summoned on Tuesday March 22, 2022 by the Toulouse appeal court. They are prosecuted for having degraded cans of pesticides in three garden centers in Ariège.
They date back to September 2016. 21 volunteer mowers are investing in garden centers in the Pamiers region. Their target: cans of glyphosate, this herbicide considered harmful to health, which they paint to make them unfit for sale.
The managers of the stores file a complaint for degradation of others.
A trial is held in 2017 but at the request of the defence, the correctional court of Foix seizes the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) “to ask him preliminary questions about compliance or non-compliance with the precautionary principle for the evaluation and marketing authorization of pesticides“.
After two reports due to a health crisis linked to the coronavirus epidemic, the Ariège activists were finally tried on March 25, 2021. And the Foix court pronounced the total release of the defendants, invoking “the state of necessity“.
For master Guillaume Tumerelle, lawyer of the voluntary mowers, this is a decision which should “weigh” in the future.
We welcome this acquittal decision of the Foix Correctional Court of June 1, 2021, which constitutes a major legal step forward. Justice finally recognizes the great effectiveness of these products and their manifest undervaluation, in particular those based on glyphosate, and it consecrates the state of necessity in environmental matters, that is to say the fact that strong symbolic actions may be necessary for the protection of our health and our environment.
Maître Guillaume Tumerelle, lawyer for voluntary mowers
A few days later, the prosecution appealed against this decision. The voluntary reapers are therefore sent back to the Toulouse appeal court, this Tuesday, March 22, 2022.
A mobilization of support must take place from 8:15 a.m., in front of the Toulouse courthouse. The activists and the prosecuted are determined to do”the pesticide lawsuit“.