How can we prevent those convicted of terrorism from being left without follow-up after having served their sentence? LREM deputies defend their proposal on this sensitive issue, Monday before the National Assembly.
"The terrorist risk is persistent on the territory" and focuses "primarily on those leaving prison in the coming years", underlines Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the law commission. There will be around 150 in the coming years, "some of whom are somewhat dangerous", according to the elected Yvelines, co-author of this bill "establishing security measures against offenders terrorists at the end of their sentence ”.
Towards a convergence of rooms?
These people "were condemned in the 2010s very often for crimes", hence these "dry exits", without "legal assistance" but with however a possible year of administrative control (Micas), explains its other author, Raphaël Gauvain. The penalties for terrorism were not stiffened until 2016 after the wave of attacks on French soil. The text will be discussed from Monday evening at first reading, with a view to adoption by Parliament by the end of July.
It arises from various hearings and visits in detention, within the framework of the parliamentary control, which revealed this "hole in the racket". Senators led by Philippe Bas (LR), Yaël Braun-Pivet's counterpart at the Palais du Luxembourg, tabled a similar bill in March on the subject, suggesting a convergence between the two chambers.
The electronic bracelet or the pointing
The version of Yaël Braun-Pivet provides that the judicial authority may impose on persons convicted of acts of terrorism the obligation to respond to summons from the judge for the enforcement of sentences, to establish his residence in a specific place, prohibitions to enter into relation and to appear in certain places, and again the obligation of pointing.
Initially, the bill also contained placement on an electronic bracelet, but MEPs removed it via MoDem and EDS amendments, to avoid confusion with a sentence restricting liberty. Raphaël Gauvain now suggests a graduated system: scoring up to five times a week or a bracelet with the person's consent and scoring then reduced to once a week.
"Punishment after punishment"
"We are on a crest road," notes Braun-Pivet: security measures should not be like a penalty, at the risk of not being able to apply to people already tried. However, the walking MPs are aiming for immediate application. They brought other guarantees to the committee to avoid any risk of unconstitutionality, by halving the total possible duration for these measures, that is to say five or 10 years depending on the facts committed.
The parliamentarians have also taken into account the opinion of the Council of State, requested on this bill, by providing that the courts will be able to end the security measures as soon as they consider it necessary, or by qualifying more precisely the notion of dangerousness.
The National Bar Council (CNB), which represents the 70,000 lawyers in France, had adopted in early June a general meeting a motion against "punishment after punishment", denouncing a text calling into question the guarantees of the rule of law and contrary to the declaration of human rights. Deputies, especially on the left, make the same criticism. "The political objective of this text is to stir up fears by once again dubbing the theses of the far right", denounce the rebels.
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