After 4 recurrences in less than a month, a young Caen man of 21 years, tried for “breach of confinement”, was released by the Caen criminal court on Monday, April 20. The public prosecutor had requested 2 months firm. The prosecution has appealed.
Facts
Friday March 27, Xavier (the first name has been changed), takes his daily exit time. He comes face to face with a municipal police officer and explains that he wants to “get tobacco”. This verbalizes him for “non-compliance with confinement”.
The following days, until Thursday April 16, the young man will be checked 4 more times and then fined. Xavier is then placed in police custody for violation of 5th class.
Friday, April 17, he was remanded in custody and transferred to the Caen prison.
Monday April 20, he is on trial at the Caen Criminal Court. After half an hour of hearing, the public prosecutor requires 2 months firm. An hour later, the court released its decision. The young man, already known to the police, is released, then released.
A legal vacuum
5 tickets, 4 recurrences, and a release? Xavier’s lawyer, Me Victor Defrancq, has indeed argued that the legal act and the penalties incurred by his client are null and void, because according to him, “not in accordance with the law”. We explain to you.
Xavier has been fined 5 times and found to be a repeat offender. However, the tickets issued by the municipal police of Caen were recorded in a file called “ADOC“.
This file, which can be consulted by the police, was created by a decree dated October 13, 2004. It provides for the recording of data related to traffic offenses.
According to Me Victor Defrancq, such a file cannot be consulted, apart from the functions entrusted to it and declared to the CNIL.
Problem, the agents in question would have diverted the use of the ADOC file, in order to see if Xavier was a repeat offender for “non-compliance with confinement”.
The decree of October 13, 2004, creating the ADOC file, in no case provided for the identification of tickets other than those related to the Highway Code. Its use in the context of these proceedings is therefore manifestly illegal and represents a diversion from the purposes of the litigation file which results in de facto, the nullity of the entirety of the proceedings.
To regularize this legal vacuum, the Ministry of the Interior issued a new decree on April 14, 2020 to modify the previous one and replace the words “traffic offenses and offenses” by “offenses subject to a lump sum fine. ”
Consequently, all the contraventions carried out before this new decree dated April 14, cannot be taken into account legally, nor to have retroactive effect.
What sanctions are foreseen in the event of non-compliance with confinement?
Since Tuesday March 17, 2020, French citizens have been obliged to stay at home and are only allowed to move outside their home if it is “necessary” and compulsorily provided with a derogatory displacement certificate.
All people who travel for unauthorized reasons, or in the absence of a derogatory certificate of displacement completed in due form, are subject to heavy penalties.
???????????? # Covid19 | For an ➕ effective application of containment measures, Decree No. 2020-357 of March 28, 2020 packages the 5th class ticket applicable in the event of a repeat offense.
Sanction 1st sanction: € 135 fine
➡️ Recidivism within 15 days: € 200 fine, increased to € 450 pic.twitter.com/INy5MG2fDj– Ministry of the Interior (@Place_Beauvau) March 29, 2020
—
Article L. 3136-1 of the public health code, paragraph 4:
” […] If the violations provided for in the third paragraph are verbalized more than three times within a period of thirty days, the facts are punishable by six months’ imprisonment and a fine of € 3,750, as well as the additional penalty of interest work general, according to the methods provided for in article 131-8 of the penal code and according to the conditions provided for in articles 131-22 to 131-24 of the same code, and the additional penalty of suspension, for a period of three years at most , driver’s license when the offense was committed using a vehicle […] “
Examples of recent sanctions
On Tuesday 24 March, a 24-year-old woman was sentenced by the Evry criminal court, in “legal recidivism”, to 7 months in prison and a 350 euros fine, for failing to comply with the measures of confinement and for spitting at the police officers who checked her by telling them “to be infected with the coronavirus”.
A week later, on Tuesday March 31, 2020, a 22-year-old man was sentenced by the Paris Criminal Court to 105 hours of community service for “repeated non-compliance with confinement”.
–
