Proposition 54K1986

Projet de loi modifiant le statut juridique des détenus et la surveillance des prisons et portant des dispositions diverses en matière de justice.

General information ¶

Submitted by

MR Swedish coalition

Submission date

July 15, 2016

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

arbitration automation banking supervision civil procedure prisoner data processing expert's report ordered by a court legal expenses prison administration labour mobility parliamentary scrutiny police legal profession appeal legal person judicial proceedings indebtedness criminal record penal institution criminal procedure confidentiality detention before trial

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PP VB

Voted to reject

LE PS | SP PVDA | PTB

Abstained from voting

Groen Ecolo DéFI

Party dissidents ¶

• Olivier Maingain (MR) abstained from voting.

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Discussion ¶

Dec. 21, 2016 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I will present my report in its entirety, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madame Özen.

The word is to you, Mrs. Ozen.

The prisoners are worthy of this. No to? I know it’s International Day of Orgasm, but it doesn’t have to... (laughs)

My colleagues asked me to place it.

Congratulations to you, Madame.

All in all, you are much more attentive when I talk about orgasm than when I talk about the status of prisoners. It is sad anyway!

I will make a general speech on behalf of my group. I will refer to my written report for the rest.

Stop the joke.

Dear colleagues, the puppets follow, but the finding remains the same. Your policy, sometimes under the cover of good intentions – you have a lot of them –, unfortunately continues to violate the rights of the prosecutors. I had the opportunity to recall it in the committee. Your project is the result of a fixed conception of law, since every procedural guarantee is perceived as an obstacle to the effectiveness of justice. For you, justice is only effective when it results in a decision, regardless of the fairness and transparency of the procedure that led to it.

The only thing my group will be happy about the pot-pourri 4 IV is what is no longer there. A year ago, during the debate on the presentation of your General Policy Note for 2016, I had already expressed serious doubts about your pilot project for the Commercial Court. No one is a prophet in his own country. It would have been necessary to wait, after a few months, for the comments of the State Council and university professors for you to hear the right and remove this chapter from your project. As a person of fundamentally optimistic nature, I would say: better late than never.

Unfortunately, in the face of this good news, there is the rest. I had told you that I would focus, in this general discussion, on a few chapters, starting with the anonymity of the police officers.

The project provides for a systematic anonymisation of the identity of special forces agents in criminal records, and an anonymisation decided by the police itself when it proves necessary in the context of investigations involving certain offences.

The project does not provide for the removal of this anonymity. Nevertheless, it can extend before the courts in two cases: first, when police officers are called to testify in court and possibly behind a curtain, and second, when the elements they collect are used in charge against an accused.

According to the European Court of Human Rights, “If the defense ignores the identity of individuals it tries to question, it may be deprived of precisions allowing it to establish that it is partial, hostile or unworthy of faith.”

However, in our criminal law, anonymous testimony is already possible, thanks to articles 75bis and 86bis of the Criminal Investigation Code, but in both cases, anonymity is granted by the investigation judge, who takes into account the circumstances and concrete risks, in his decision.

Anonymous testimony has been the subject of an important case-law by the European Court of Human Rights. In 1998, the current president of the Court of Cassation, Mr. Jean de Codt, and in 2007, Ms. Marie-Aude Beernaert, who is a professor of criminal law at UCL, each commented on these judgments of the European Court of Human Rights which recall the major principles to surround anonymous testimony.

According to them, a number of requirements must be met before granting anonymity. They must take into account the rights of defence. Anonymous testimony must be decided by a judge, granted only if no alternative is possible, assessed in concreto, and therefore not attributed generally and automatically, and finally, it cannot be the determining factor in the outcome of a trial.

These principles, applied to the pot-pourri IV bill, would mean that if evidence is collected or found by anonymous police officers, a judge should systematically decide on the need to remain anonymous on a case-by-case basis. That is what you are accused of, the bill does not provide for this. Although the investigation judge can take knowledge of the identities, on the contrary, the draft provides for a prison sentence and/or fine in case of disclosure of identity.

The explanation of the reasons is justified by a reference to a 2014 judgment of the European Court of Human Rights. However, this judgment concerns witnesses absent at the trial. Furthermore, the European Court of Human Rights requires, even for absent witnesses, an assessment, in concreto, by a judge, of the necessity of an absence of appearance. And what is true for absent witnesses must a fortiori be true for anonymous witnesses. For the current president of the Court of Cassation, the European Court of Human Rights considers that “as a rule, when anonymous witnesses are police officers, it is appropriate to be more rigorous in respect of the rights of defence, than when there are simple individuals. The requirement of contradiction is so greater, in fact, that the members of the law enforcement forces are bound to a general duty of obedience to the executive power of the State and are, in relation to the public prosecutor, in a hierarchical position with regard to their mission of judicial police.”

We are not fundamentally against the anonymity of police officers, but we cannot accept, in the name of fair trial and the rights of defence, that this anonymity is systematic and uncontrolled. Furthermore, if the bill is voted as it is, many criminal trials risk not to result due to the lack of admissible evidence. That is why we had submitted an amendment in the committee aiming – in the face of evidence collected or found by police officers anonymously – that an investigation judge can systematically decide on the maintenance of this anonymity on a case-by-case basis.

Another aspect of the project is challenged: the reform of the Central Council and the prison surveillance commissions. Mr. Minister, I reminded you of this in a committee and, in this regard, we will recognize the lack of honesty of this government that has never made reference to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

Mr. Minister, you do not ignore that, in the current state, the pot-pourri IV will not allow Belgium to ratify this protocol. We remain an exception within Europe, keeping the sad place of the signatories who have not ratified the treaty. I recall that Cambodia or Mozambique have found the way to establish control bodies that meet the requirements of this Protocol. This is not our case.

But more specifically, if one can only approve the independence of these control bodies, it becomes dust in the eye as it comes to assessing the impact of the proposed reforms. When the administration imposes all the weight of public power on a person, it must do so in strict respect for the rule of law. Whether in prison or elsewhere, the relationship of force between two opposing interests, when they exercise themselves in the shelter of the eyes, necessarily entails abuses and this is the reason why, no space of deprivation of liberty must escape a complete and complete transparency. The state must accept to be accountable and accept to be controlled even very closely. These principles are not dictated by distrust towards those who carry heavy responsibilities in the prison environment, but it is the conflicting nature of our prison system that requires it. That is why this bill should not be limited to prisons alone, but to all places of deprivation of liberty as provided by the OPCAT. I think here of closed centers or police offices.

Equally important is the question of the effectiveness of the means of control. It is not enough to want exemplary prisons. We must give ourselves the means. Now, like almost all of the people heard about this project, we denounce the cumulative imposed on the supervisory commissions. They are assigned functions of mediation and control at the same time as the function of handling complaints.

This accumulation will weaken the supervisory commissions. With regard to mediation, they will lose all credibility and impartiality with regard to detainees who will no longer want to resort to these commissions. With regard to the handling of complaints, they will first be overwhelmed by complaints to which they will not be able to give, due to lack of time and training, the appropriate judicial treatment. But in addition, they will no longer have the necessary independence to resolve a conflict.

Mr. Minister, as you are used to do very subtly, many small retreats are slipped from here, from there in the project. In particular, nude excavations are less framed; the hours to appeal or oppose are reduced.

Mr. Minister, when reading these articles, I really wonder how much you are aware of the prison reality. You continue to create the present reality. Have you only read the reports of the Central Council or the supervisory committees or even the decisions of the State Council? Do you think today that the problem of nude excavations lies in the excessive administrative complexity they require?

As for the terms of appeal or opposition, I wonder how many detainees have actually had to be released because their rights would not have been respected. What report allows you to assert that the current system is a problem in practice? Why do you decide to change or retreat, with fewer rights for prisoners, since that would be a problem?

The government is doing everything to get rid of prisons. You have reduced the reflection around prisons to a mere question of danger. The removal of a classification adapted to the reinsertion and needs of prisoners brings the Belgian prison and prison environment back to a conception of another time. We ignore all scientific studies on a necessary classification that would be much more intelligent and suitable for prisoners. What about this disresponsibility that you begin by removing the procedures that are established by royal decree? By doing so, you open the way to the arbitrary administration; administration that is already under pressure because of the savings that are imposed on it.

As for the individual detention plan, you are so simplifying its conditions that instead of being a real modern reintegration tool, it will become an administrative formality. The fact that it should not be written within the establishment where the detainee is placed obviously says a lot about your design of the prison.

In an entirely different register, the project creates a market court of 3 judges, which does not lack to appeal to me. First of all, I do not hide from you my surprise to learn that the Chairman of the Court of Appeal was not associated, nor even consulted about this reform. Then it is at least strange to create a section that would know only one percent of the cases handled by the Brussels Court of Appeal, especially since this section would consist of twice three magistrates and the framework is not yet filled.

In reality, through this new market court, the government confirms its choice of a two-speed justice: effective and fast for conflicts between large corporations, slow and underfunded for others. The exclusion of consumers from this new court only reinforces this impression. Why a recruitment that deviates from normal procedures? We ask ourselves whether this exception is not written on a custom-made basis in order to go looking for judges in the law firms close to these large companies.

Other questions, Mr. Minister: if the framework of this market court is filled, does that mean that there will be fewer magistrates for other cases? Why prefer these cases over cases of terrorism, finance or involving minors, for example?

I would also like to stop for a few moments on the government’s choice of not taking into account the opinions on unnecessary expenses given by the State Council and the Lawyers’ Orders, since in the case of recovery of a claim through judicial proceedings, the draft creates a presumption of fault if the claim is uncontested, since there is an extrajudicial procedure that has been less expensive since pot-pourri I. As a result, the judicial path may be considered by office as unnecessary costs, costs that the creditor will have to pay.

The State Council did not chew its words on the provisions in the draft. He recalls, first of all, that the extrajudicial procedure has not yet entered into force and above all says that the draft is not admissible in view of Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution because “it is difficult to be able to determine in advance whether the uncontested claim will actually be.” In other words, at the time of initiating its recovery procedure, the applicant is not sure that it will not be contested later.

The government absolutely does not take into account the State Council objection and ⁇ ins its article. This translates to a constant in justice, Mr. Minister, since your accession to power. These are blind savings on all floors and very little attention is given to the opinions that have been made. And even though one can understand the concern of saving to avoid unnecessary procedures, unfortunately, the government pretends to ignore the aim pursued by the essence of this procedure, namely to avoid force relations affecting the outcome of a conflict and leading to decisions that are arbitrary.

Finally, I will conclude with the last measure of your project, which concerns the merger of transplants and, then, the removal of audiences. We could have accepted the merger of the transplants that are located within the same building. Unfortunately, in the current state, your project allows a much wider transplant fusion up to reducing to one transplant per arrondissement.

We have made all our remarks, and this has been repeatedly stated, Mr. Minister. You refused to adapt your text, which further justifies our suspicion. I tell you, if this government is obsessed with savings, reduces the number of transplants to one per district, it once again limits access to justice. Since the beginning of this legislature, the government, which is still obsessed with its economies, presents us with projects, of which the pot-pourri IV is part, which permanently affect the rights of citizens and undermine the public service.

The Department of Justice does not escape the reduction of public services, at the risk of increasingly distancing the citizen from justice. That is why we will not support this project. I thank you.

Mr. Minister, I heard that in Mrs. Özen’s mind, orgasm could only be done naked! I do not know if this is true. I leave this to your sagacity.

Mr. Minister, as usual with these crazy laws that are dear to you, you find measures so disparate that some are interesting, while others are not. Then there is a general opinion: yes, no, abstention. It is very difficult to share things. Your method has to confuse the opposition. This may be simple for the majority, since they vote a whole set of measures at once, so that everyone can find their account. This is not necessarily the case for legal persons or legal practitioners who must then put these provisions into music.

I will focus on one aspect of this text, which will justify the reason why we will not support it. Nevertheless, at first, I was very interested in the title of this pot-pourri IV: "Draft law modifying the legal status of detainees and the surveillance of prisons". I thought: here is finally a courageous minister who will implement the various provisions of the Law of Principles of 12 January 2005. We could hope for it, especially since it was included in your Justice Plan. You expressed your desire to see this legislation fully come into force.

I remind you, Mr. Minister, that the primary detention path for the reintegration of detainees into society and the fight against recurrence is still in force today. There is also the right to complaint. If good solutions could be found, it would indeed be interesting. I know you are working on medical law. But it is worth noting that, far from achieving the desired outcome, the text you present to us will still not be able to be fully applied.

This is why I have submitted an amendment to the committee, which I will submit again to the plenary session. As part of this amendment, I invite all colleagues and especially those of the majority to accept that, as of January 1, 2018, this law that made our parliament proud, which was the subject of colloquial, which was studied a bit everywhere and which was presented as an excellent legislative initiative, can finally be applied.

When I defended this amendment in the committee, you told me that on January 1, 2018, it might be a little early because we probably won’t be able to do everything yet because we need to appeal to the Minister of Health who is responsible for incorporating medical law into the overall system of social security.

As far as we are concerned, we can operate a transfer from SPF Justice to SPF Public Health, but it is necessary that Mrs. De Block agrees and finds, in this period of disqualification, the budgetary means to cope with this new burden. Furthermore, in my opinion, one cannot merely simply transfer responsibility to others.

I also find that the right of complaint provided for in this law of 2005 will not yet be effectively organized.

What were the basic principles of the Dupont Law? It was intended to develop a full legal status of the detainee, actually perceived as a subject of law, the objective being that the detrimental effects of detention should be limited to the fullest extent possible, which constitutes an essential condition for the realization of other objectives of this law such as reintegration, repair and rehabilitation. In this context, she advocates the development of a prison course in the perspective of a possible early release.

A strategic way to ⁇ these objectives has led to the creation of an individual detention plan, i.e. the individualization of the accompaniment of detainees as a guarantee of better reintegration and a lower rate of recurrence.

It was necessary to strengthen priorities in respect of the detainee, obtain the participation in the detention course of a series of field actors and allow the detainee to have living conditions that are as close as possible to those he would have outside. Ten years later, we are nowhere.

This is unfortunate, Mr. Minister, while I know that this is part of the objectives that you pursue but, either, you are not given the financial means, or, there is no political will in this majority so that finally, this law produces all its effects.

The only positive point you propose to us in this situation is to transfer to parliament the responsibility of the Central Surveillance Council as well as the prison surveillance commissions. The industry has been in high demand for this measure for several years.

This will put an end to the situation where the one who had to judge the life in prison, hear the detainees and their complaints, act as an interface with the directions of prison establishments, depended entirely on the SPF Justice. It did not make much sense and was almost equivalent to being a judge and part.

Yes, very well . transfer to Parliament. But, Mr. Speaker, I do not know if you have been concerted with regard to this transfer of a complementary body which will require significant budgetary resources in order for it to be really effective. The Minister foresees, if you are not aware, that 66,000 euros can be transferred from SPF Justice to Parliament to fill this new charge. In a conference where members of his cabinet were present, the measure was estimated to be between 1.5 and 2 million euros.

Mr. Speaker, I, I interpelled the minister in commission to know whether the Chamber had actually been concerted, the accounting services, formerly the quarter, I still did not properly integrate the new designation. Are we ready at this parliamentary level to welcome this complementary service that actually has its place within our assembly rather than within the SPF Justice?

But if, obviously, the Parliament, which is also asked to make efforts in terms of its budget and the reduction of it, is forced to carry out new tasks without having the means to do so, that is to say that the reform will have no effect! It is known that in order to function, the Central Council, if one speaks only of it and without mentioning the supervisory commissions, will need a secretariat, staff at its disposal, legal practitioners without doubt. Where will we go to find them? How will we actually finance these procedures?

Believing your attitude, Mr. Speaker, I feel that you are not very aware, that the services of the House are not too, and that you may not have the means to fulfill this new mission.

Once, it is Mrs. the Minister of Public Health who must find the solutions in such a way that the medical law of the accused integrates the secu in the broad sense. Once, it is the parliament that must find the solutions, including budgetary and human resources, to accommodate the Central Surveillance Council, its missions and those of the special commissions of each of the prisons of the kingdom. We break the responsibilities but without giving or having the financial means, which leads me to think that we will have difficulty at the level of our parliament to fulfill this mission that is still expected in our head and that delighted all actors on the ground.

Really questions about the reality and effectiveness of this transfer.

Furthermore, Mr. Minister, I have tried to discuss and open some doors so that the treatment of complaints, to which prisoners are entitled and which is enshrined by the Law of Principles of 2005, is effectively applied. Trusting this complaint handling task to prison surveillance commissions is inconceivable. This does not stand the way, when one knows that the same body is, at the same time, charged with both a mediation mission and the processing of complaints, how can one imagine that a member of a supervisory commission acts as a mediator between a detainee and the management or guardians can still have a credibility to handle complaints while retaining its neutral character? Confidence is very likely to be broken. The primary task of the supervisory committees is precisely this function of mediation and not that of handling complaints, I think.

Especially because, from a practical point of view, we all know that these commissions are composed of volunteers and that we have increasing difficulties in forming them within prison establishments. The members of these committees do not have the time to perform a judicial function while these would justify a full-time if one wants to make it a real organ for handling complaints. It would have been better to use an external judicial body. However, in the current period, we do not have the budget resources. Other pistes were explored through the federal mediators initially, through a proposal that they had made. They pointed out the fact that they cannot handle the complaints. But, being aware, reading and monitoring the work of our committee of the fact that the committees and the Central Supervisory Board would be attached to the Chamber, serving as a receptacle on the administrative level at least, with the human and budgetary means that are theirs, to help the Central Council to assume its responsibilities, this too, while we tried to transcribe it into the text under the form of amendment, we were refused.

I therefore think, Mr. Minister, that far from going in the direction of the political will that you trace in your general policy note or in your views on what should be justice and the concretization of all the provisions of the Dupont Act, one still deviates from it even though, theoretically, by bringing the Central Council and the supervisory committees to Parliament, one takes a step in the right direction. This step will not be enough and may even be a step back if the budget and human resources are not associated with this new mission.

Furthermore, Mr. Minister, in the text you propose to us, far from improving the situation of the detainees, you complicate the opposition that they can make or the appeal that they can interject with regard to decisions that concern them, saying that these can now only take place during the opening hours of the prison transplants and not at any time as it was the case today. I think it is wrong to know the difficulties that prisoners experience on a daily basis. They must get out of their cell, and get permission to join the transplant, ⁇ at times when it will not even be open anymore.

You continue with the classification of prisons and the searches of prisoners. We talked about this a few years ago. Everybody had already considered the nude excavations to be a scandal in the name of respect for human rights and privacy. Far from improving this situation, you are making it even more complex in that we all know, as members of the Justice Committee, that abuses are committed on the occasion of these nude excavations. Illegal practices are identified and denounced. It is not an expansion of the naked excavations that should have been done, but an emphasis on the protection of the detainee against these ⁇ shocking, even traumatic, invasive means.

Mr. Minister, I did not want to talk about the other aspects of your bill, to stick to this element which, in itself, justifies that we will not follow you for this text. Some elements are interesting, but the main thing, which gave the name to your pot-pourri IV, that is, the legal situation of the detainees, is obviously not improved by this text: just the opposite.

Mr. President, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, here we are, once again, led to vote on a new law which the Minister likes to title “pot-pourri”, “pot-pourri IV”. So, a pot-pourri, in music, is rather a selection of airs pleasant to hear, a selection of tracks chosen because they are part of an appreciated repertoire. It is true that there are always, in your bills, elements that we can approve and which undoubtedly bring an anticipated legal advance. I think, for example, in this project, of the creation of a central criminal record of legal persons or of the imputation of days of inoperative preventive detention.

But, this satisfaction is very quickly limited – and I will devote most of my explanation to this chapter – compared to the expectation that many had in your bill regarding its part relating to the full and full implementation of the principle law of 12 January 2005, the Dupont law, expectation which is only very partially met by your bill.

It is true – others have recalled it before me – that the full and complete application of the Dupont Act remains today unsatisfied. Nevertheless, this law – which remains one of the reference laws, including for those who, in other countries, seek to better determine the legal status of detainees – will not receive, by your bill, its full and full application. And the opposite! There are even some regressions in your bill compared to the Dupont Act. Should it be recalled that the Dupont Act was in fact aimed at bringing real legal certainty to detainees, based on an approach centered on the status of subject of law that the detainee is and with the desire to limit the detrimental effects of detention?

Thus, the detainee could no longer be subject to a limitation of his social, economic or cultural rights other than that arising from his criminal conviction and the measure of deprivation of liberty. It was undoubtedly a Copernican law because it also instituted a right of complaint in favor of detainees for decisions taken against them. It also established the Central Surveillance Council as well as the competent surveillance commissions for each prison, which were until now under the dome of the Minister of Justice.

It is true, and we are grateful to you, that this bill provides for linking these supervisory bodies to Parliament, like Committee P, Committee R or the Privacy Protection Commission. A major progress, though, is sufficient in view of the 2005 Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Inhuman and Degrading Treatment, better known as the abbreviation OPCAT. Why Why ? First of all, in your project, the commissions will have mandate only for prisons and not for all places of deprivation of liberty. It was Me Laurent, the Chair of the Central Supervisory Board, who drew attention to this point, especially when examining the project in committee.

Certainly, to justify this gap, you have fled behind the argument of institutional complexity. I am not sure that there would be no competence for the federal legislator to establish a competent national prevention mechanism for all places of deprivation of liberty, even though some of them are established or managed by the levels of power that are federal entities. It seems to me that there are precedents in other states, but with other rules of competence distribution. You could at least have presented, simultaneously with the filing of your bill, a draft of consent to an agreement between the different levels of power in order to settle this issue.

Furthermore, the control and mediation mission is not always distinct from the handling of complaints. Thus, the handling of the complaints of the detainees in relation to the decisions of the prison management is not entrusted to another body than the supervisory commissions where persons already overloaded work. However, it would be easier to entrust the processing of mediation to a separate body from the Supervisory Commission.

This separate body would then present guarantees of independence, impartiality, but also of accessibility, would have a paid staff for these tasks, which should be exercised on a full-time basis, and would have sufficient knowledge of the prison environment and internal prison procedures.

This confusion of the missions of mediation and complaint handling by a single body constitutes a confession of weakness, a lack of ambition, it seems to me, and above all a lack of willingness to comply with international law. The European Court of Human Rights insists, in its case-law, on the impossibility of being both mediator and judge, and on the finding that all members of the supervisory committees do not necessarily have the independence, impartiality, or training, nor even the time necessary to properly ensure a task of handling complaints from detainees with whom they frequently discuss in the context of their mediation tasks.

On the contrary, it is also wrong to see how a commission that gives, for example, a favorable follow-up to a complaint, can subsequently restore the trust link necessary for its mediation function.

As I said, you could have set up a new independent commission within each prison. Obviously, I acknowledge that this has a budget cost. It would have been in compliance with international law. This would have been in accordance with the ratio legis of the Dupont Act, which wanted to promote a commission that is in prison, that is in touch with the reality of the prison and whose decision could quickly replace that of the director of the prison.

You do not have the budget resources. This is more than regrettable: it is a failure to properly distribute tasks in order to preserve the status of detainees.

Finally, the composition of the commissions, as you consider it, or whether you confirm it, does not allow an official representation of criminologists within these commissions, while they are just trained in the management of detained persons and in their relations with the penitentiary administration. We are submitting an amendment for this purpose.

As for the official classification of prisons according to specific groups of detainees, which the bill intends to remove, this is quite regrettable because this distinction presented an added value. Your removal seems unfortunate to me as to the proper preparation of prisoners for their reintegration.

We therefore also submit an amendment to remove the article that ends the distinction of classification of prison establishments according to specific groups of detainees. This must be safeguarded, as it again respects the ratio legis of the 2005 law, namely classifying prisons according to technical measures of control, but also, in order to allow human and quality accompaniment of detainees. This involves a different approach and adapted according to their specificities, the duration of the sentence, age, health, special modalities and that in each prison.

It is also surprising that you remove it, while you are planning, notably in the Masterplan III Prison, the renovation of the site of Merksplas which is precisely a prison that can accommodate 400 detainees with adapted profiles – long sentence, elderly detainees, suffering from mental or specific disorders, etc. This prison will therefore be the exception that confirms the rule with what it implies for prisoners who would thus find themselves far from their relatives. I also regret it.

Examination of clothes and scrutiny of the body. Although the explanation of the reasons for the project gives importance to the fact that “the members of the surveillance staff who carry out the examination of the clothes and the body search have undergone training for this purpose, in order to carry out these forms of control in a correct, secure and humane way”, it remains not less that this requirement does not translate at all into the device, in the article returned to the project. I am also submitting an amendment to correct this forgetfulness and to mention in the law the requirement of specific training for personnel conducting bodily excavations.

In accordance with the rules of the Council of Europe, excavators must be trained to detect and prevent attempts to escape or conceal fraudulent objects, while respecting the dignity of the persons searched. The requirement of motivation for the decision of body search, taken by the director of the prison, is also mentioned since such search is allowed only because of precise individualized indicators that must be included in that decision.

Furthermore, always in accordance with the rules recommended by the Council of Europe, the course of the body excavation must be specified so that the detainee can never find himself completely naked, the excavation aiming first at the top and then at the bottom of the body.

These penitentiary rules must be transposed as regards the examination of body cavities by specifying that it cannot be carried out by penitentiary personnel. This is what the Council of Europe recommends. In principle, the presence of a doctor is required.

Finally, I would like to insist on the reform of the appeal and the opposition. They will be possible, as other speakers have recalled, only during the opening hours of the office of prisons or of the sections of social defence – and this, in comparison with the modalities of appeal before the office of courts and courts. I regret that this reform disproportionately restricts the right of detainees in time, while their deprivation of freedom of movement prevents them from taking steps to appeal or oppose as easily as a person who is not incarcerated would. You know how it is not easy for a prisoner to get out of his cell in order to undertake a move at the implant, to prepare his arguments, sometimes to have the mastery of the understanding of the documents submitted to him because he does not have the mastery of one of the national languages. It is true that the permission granted to prisoners to go to the transplant office takes a long time to arrive due to the recurring lack of staff and the strikes that sometimes result – so many obstacles to the exercise of the right of appeal or opposition by a prisoner.

I would like to point out that this bill contains significant procedural advances. I think of the anonymity under certain conditions of the representatives of the law enforcement forces, of the creation of a market court within the Court of Appeal, but I will not take back the long list of the various matters concerned by this pot-pourri. It remains that, as regards the status of prisoners, you bring restrictions to the ambition of the Dupont Act which I find disproportionate. Therefore, we will not be able to support your bill in the state.

I thank you.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to make you comfortable with regard to the financing of the Supervisory Board and the functioning of the measures provided for in this bill. Indeed, we have planned a postponed entry into force pending an agreement with Parliament on the financing of this autonomous operation. In other words, Mr. President, we will take our time.

However, with regard to compliance with the Convention on Human Rights, it is clear that operating independently from the Ministry and the Minister of Justice is absolutely necessary.

Furthermore, as regards the confusion of competences, I have frequently pointed out that it is in no way in my intention to have the supervisory function and the complaint handling function performed by the same persons, but that there would be a distinction of functions within the supervisory boards. I added that it would be useful that one acquires a supervisory competence before sitting on complaints.

It is true that we must urgently ratify the principle of the OPCAT Convention. That is our intention. I said this in the committee.

I know that simultaneity is not realized, Mr Maingain. This does not mean that we will not be in a hurry to make this happen.

The basic law of Mr. Dupont is very expensive to me. A royal arrest was made. I think I have given, in committee, the different dates of entry into force of the different parties.

Therefore, I did not dare to commit myself for January 1, 2018, because caution is put in place. In any case, we are making tremendous progress and I only emphasize that, for example, in relation to release for medical reasons, we have already put the basic law into force at the beginning of the legislature.

With regard to the appeal to the court office or to the prison office, it is normal to insist that there are no faults. I do not think that in this way, there will be late call deposits. It is not possible to require prison guards to have the knowledge necessary to not make errors, at night, concerning deposits.

For the excavation, it is true that we want to follow the Convention on Human Rights and we will do so, through a directive that will impose, at least for women, that the excavation takes place in two times, in a dignified way, that is, without the person being completely naked.

With regard to torture and the commission against torture, this is one of my great concerns, Mrs. Özen. We will try to negotiate as soon as possible a minimum service, which has become very necessary. I will stick to that.

I think I have answered most of the questions, Mr. President. With this pot-pourri IV, we are making great progress. Every progress is made in small steps, but these were worth taking.