While the health situation has deteriorated considerably in the Alpes-Maritimes, several measures were announced by Bernard Gonzales, the prefect of the department, on Monday. Among them, a weekend confinement has been decided for the coastal urban area of the department.
“Confinement in the Alpes-Maritimes on weekends in addition to a curfew during the week, does it not go against the principles of freedom of the Republic? Can we oppose (legal recourse) measures if we consider them too restrictive and restrictive for our freedoms? “, asked us Heloise. Ouest-France answers you.
To answer you, we interviewed two lawyers.
It is indeed possible to challenge the prefectural decree before the administrative court.
“The measures that are decided must be proportionate to the health situation and also temporary. The prefect will have to demonstrate that they are appropriate to the circumstances of time and place and that they will have a predefined end, or at the very least calculable ”, explains Me Valentine Tessier, specialized in public law.
The contestation of a local confinement is done by means of an interim relief.
“The interest of this procedure lies in the fact that it allows urgent referral to the administrative judge, when it is considered that the administration (for example the State or a local authority) infringes a fundamental freedom. In principle, the judge decides within 48 hours ”, specifies Me Alix-Anne Sauret, of the Green law lawyers in Roubaix.
Follow our live dedicated to the coronavirus epidemic, this Wednesday, February 24
Preserving public health
It is then necessary to be able to demonstrate that there is an urgent need to rule and that the administration carried out, by taking the act, “A serious and clearly illegal infringement of a fundamental freedom within the meaning of the provisions of article L.521-2 of the Code of Administrative Justice (CJA)”.
This has already happened last year. The applicants then applied to the Council of State for the suspension, by means of an interim relief, the Prime Minister’s decree which ordered the prefects of 16 departments to establish a curfew between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.. They therefore wanted to reduce the curfew time slot and provide new grounds for exemptions.
The request was ultimately rejected by the Council of State, which indicated that “The measure appeared to be justified and proportionate to combat the spread of the virus”.
“In the current period of health emergency, it is up to the various competent authorities to take, with a view to safeguarding the health of the population, all measures likely to prevent or limit the effects of the epidemic”, noted the highest administrative court.
“These measures, which may restrict the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms, must, to this extent, be necessary, appropriate and proportionate to the objective of safeguarding public health which they pursue”.
What local health circumstances?
To summarize, “If it is possible to introduce an interim relief against an order prescribing a local confinement measure, the chances of success attached to such an action appear to be uncertain”, indicates Me Alix-Anne Sauret.
It would therefore be a question of showing that the measure is disproportionate to the health situation of the department. However, the Alpes-Maritimes are still by far the department with the highest incidence rate: 583 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Read also: Covid-19. Some indicators are on the rise, which departments are worrying?
In the department, the occupancy rate of intensive care beds climbs to 90.6%, according to the latest update from the Regional Health Agency Monday. The test positivity rate is 10.4%, compared to 6.4% nationally.
– .
