Des conditions de détention indignes au centre pénitentiaire de Bordeaux-Gradignan – Administratif
Although new issues are emerging relating to confinement, respect for the dignity of detainees during their detention remains at the heart of all concerns. Both academics and practitioners thus join the same approach: to ensure that the “deprivation of liberty” (in the criminal sense) is limited to the deprivation of the sole freedom to come and go, as far as possible and to the extent of the remedies offered by our current legal system (see e.g., S. Zientara-Logeay [dir.], Conditions of detention: condition of detention, LexisNexis, 2021, 274 p. ; v. equal., F. Habouzit, The control of the decisions of the penitentiary administration relating to the conditions of execution of the sentence, SRC 2022. 275 ). In this enterprise, which seems to us perpetual, the administrative judge thus constitutes one of the main pivots of the right to respect for dignity in detention (see B. Pastre-Belda, Improving detention conditions thanks to the administrative judge, D.2022.1744 ). Very recently, he was called upon to note major malfunctions in the prison environment and to put an end to the guarantees enjoyed by detainees (TA Toulouse, ref., 4 Oct. 2021, no. 2105421, Dalloz news, Oct. 12, 2021, obs. Mr Dominati ; August 2, 2022, No. 2203925, Dalloz news, Sept. 9, 2022, obs. Mr Dominati).
It is therefore no surprise that on September 30, 2022, the International Observatory of Prisons – French Section (OIP), the Order of Lawyers at the Bordeaux Bar, the Association of Lawyers for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights (A3D) and the Union of Lawyers of France (SAF) seized the judge in chambers of a request for a finding of the unworthiness of the conditions of detention within the penitentiary establishment of Bordeaux-Gradignan. On October 11, this same magistrate issued an order ordering the prison administration to take nine urgent measures likely to improve the daily lives of people imprisoned under the stated conditions, some of which also aimed to strengthen their right to health. In short, he considers that the conditions of incarceration in the Bordeaux-Gradignan penitentiary center constitute a serious and manifestly illegal violation of the right not to be subjected to degrading treatment as well as the right to respect for the private and family life of detainees. .
CGLPL recommendations
In June 2022, following a visit to the Bordeaux-Gradignan penitentiary centre, the Controller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL) made fifteen urgent recommendations, the purpose of which was to highlight the serious dysfunctions that observed there (CGLPL, Emergency recommendations of June 30, 2022 relatives at the Bordeaux-Gradignan prison center, OJ July 13. 2022). In particular, they report “dramatically high” overcrowding (235% occupancy in the quarters of men’s remand prisons), “unworthy premises” due to “unacceptable hygiene and sanitation conditions”, a access to degraded care, where “the physical integrity of detainees was not assured”. In other words, according to the Comptroller General, “accommodation of human beings should be prohibited” within the Neo-Aquitaine establishment. Faced with the observed inaction of the Ministers of Justice and Health, the organizations concerned for the defense of the rights of detainees have…