“Illegal” tickets? In Rouen, a man released despite six breaches of confinement

Wednesday May 13, 2020 at the Court of Rouen (Seine-Maritime), a man was tried for six times raping the confinement. His lawyer obtained the acquittal, explaining why these tickets are according to him were “illegal”.

Read also: The offense of breach of confinement disputed by this lawyer from Rouen, her released client

The affair began on April 29, 2020 around midnight in Rouen, when the police noticed a vehicle in circulation with three individuals on board. During the period of confinement, the officials decided to carry out a control of the occupants. Louis *, 21, driver of the vehicle has no special certificate.

The police force verbalize it, for non-compliance with confinement. When the officers pass the young man’s identity to the file, they find that since March 30, 2020, he has breached the confinement six times. They proceed to his arrest, and place him in police custody. Louis fully acknowledges the facts. Faced with a sentence of three months’ imprisonment for another case, the young man is imprisoned in Rouen prison.

The “ADOC” file in question

Judged by videoconference because of the current state of health emergency, the young man goes back on his declarations and affirms to have violated only three times the confinement. “I didn’t get along with my parents, so I went outside to calm down,” he said. While the Court of Cassation rules on multiple priority questions of constitutionality relating to the legality of the verbalization linked to the confinement, master Jérémy Kalfon, lawyer of Louis, seizes the court of an application for nullity. He considers that the police have consulted a file called Adoc (access to the tickets files) to characterize the breach of confinement alleged against his client.

However, according to him, the file in question is intended “only for traffic offenses”, as stipulated in the decree of October 13, 2004, since amended: “By acting in this way, the contraventions alleged against my client could not in any way be incorporated into this file, and are therefore illegal. The lawyer therefore asked the court to declare the proceedings completely null and void his client.

Read also: Coronavirus. Breach of confinement: a Héraultais imprisoned after six verbalizations

Pascal Prache, Public Prosecutor, believes that the file in question has been in force since 2004, that the National Commission for Data Protection (Cnil) delivered an opinion on April 9, “considering the extension of the field legitimate of jurisdiction of this file to tickets related to the state of health emergency ”and requests the rejection of this nullity. He considers that the offense is perfectly characterized “by the violation of the confinement in force six times” and requires the penalty of 220 hours of community service and four months of suspension of the driving license.

The Constitutional Council seized

The court ruled in favor of the defense, granting the invalidity raised by the latter, in particular due to the first fines received by the accused, dated before the opinion of the CNIL. He ordered the deletion of the tickets from the file, and acquitted the accused. The Crown has 20 days to appeal this decision **.

Read also: Reopening of the courts in Eure and Seine-Maritime: “We will have to adapt”

For its part, the Court of Cassation held that the offense of breach of confinement was “likely to infringe the principle of the legality of crimes and penalties”, and “the principle of the presumption of innocence”. The offense will therefore be examined shortly by the Constitutional Council. If the latter followed the opinion of the Court of Cassation, the sentences pronounced before April 16 could be rendered null and void.

* First names have been changed
** This sentence is subject to appeal. Everyone is presumed innocent until all means of redress have been exhausted.

From our correspondent Frédéric Bernard

–