Coronavirus in France: the courts face the deconfinement puzzle

Text by: Romain Philips Follow

Since the beginning of the containment decreed to fight against the Covid-19, the French courts are almost at a standstill. Scheduled for May 11, the deconfinement creates a lot of uncertainty and a colossal workload for justice personnel.

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Already affected by a strike by lawyers which had started in 2019, French courts are all the more affected by the health crisis due to the Covid-19 . Since the speech of the President of the French Republic Emmanuel Macron, on April 13, 2020, promising a deconfinement of the country from May 11, the judicial sector is on the bridge to prepare this return to normal life. But before resuming activities, there are many obstacles to overcome.

"  The recovery will be extremely complicated  "

Since March 16, the date on which containment began in France, business continuity plans have been put in place in all the jurisdictions of the country and the courts have been closed. Leaving, in fact, thousands of pending cases that will have to be dealt with when the business resumes.

► Read also: Coronavirus: with the closure of the courts, justice is slowing down in France

“  The recovery is going to be extremely complicated. It was difficult during confinement and it will always be afterwards,  ”said Sarah Massoud, magistrate and general secretary of the Magistrates' Union. According to her, the time for French courts to return to a normal situation is counted "  in years  " for some, "  in months  " for others.

Indeed, dealing with all the files rejected during the confinement period represents colossal work. For the courts, post-containment must first begin with an inventory. "We  will have to count the stocks [the files that accumulate, note] , prioritize emergencies because some files can wait but others do not, but to find out it is necessary to make an inventory of fixtures  ", explains to RFI the magistrate. In the courts, 2.2 million decisions were rendered by civil activity - almost stopped during confinement - in 2018 against almost 800,000 in criminal proceedings.

Several weeks to prepare for the resumption

A heavy task also falls on the bailiffs. Due to the lack of access to a teleworking tool for the majority of them, the court decisions could not be recorded. It will therefore be necessary to notify the judgments to the parties, reconvene the postponed hearings and process new requests.

Faced with this finding, the magistrates' union, in a note published on April 20 , estimates that it will take between "  two and five weeks  ", depending on the delay accumulated in the courts to hope to resume a quasi-normal activity. Reinforcements are also expected in the courts to deal with the pending workload. But under "  under what conditions? Asks the union. A return to work on May 11 does not mean a presence of all staff in the jurisdictions given the risk of contamination still present.

"  In some courts, the courtrooms are not suitable for welcoming the public  " in these health circumstances, explains Sarah Massoud. What about assize trials where a jury made up of citizens is necessary? To overcome the difficulty of enforcing barrier gestures and the fear that jurors are afraid to come, solutions are being considered.

"Criminal Courts», New departmental jurisdictions established during the Justice reform of March 23, 2019, could be mobilized. Originally planned to unclog the assize courts, they are only composed of five magistrates and compliance with barrier gestures should be easier.

Plexiglas masks and plates

Another unknown, this time concerning the equipment, is a major source of concern for justice personnel. "  Today, it is not possible that all staff can have a mask and we have no visibility to know if by May 11 we will all have them,  " said Ms. Massoud.

The union is also requesting more information regarding the logistics of the courts. "  We asked that arrangements be made,  " explains the magistrate, referring in particular to Plexiglas plates to protect the hearings. Regarding the files, we must define "  in which room we put them, under what conditions and how long to leave them to rest to avoid contamination,  " she adds. At the Paris Court of Appeal, for example, a special room will be set up for lawyers to file their cases, reports Le Monde . They will then be stored there for three days, before a clerk equipped with protective equipment can seize them.

Lawyers worry

Extremely weakened by the confinement and cessation of work, which for some is almost total, many lawyers are perplexed about the resumption of their activities. “  What we fear is a resumption of justice without a lawyer and without litigants. In certain cases it is acceptable, but in certain jurisdictions, that is imposed on us  ”, regrets Araez Estellia, lawyer and president of the Syndicate of the lawyers of France, evoking the case of the court of appeal of Paris which will have recourse to“  procedures without hearing  ”from May 11. "  We are trying to catch up by going very very fast,  " she said.

Presentation of the first 25 orders taken in application of the emergency law to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic https://t.co/DWU12wPlcL via @gouvernementfr

As part of the state of health emergency, four orders were made by the Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet, on March 25, to "  simplify  " the work of justice. Thus, hearings can sometimes be held by videoconference, in camera or without a lawyer, court decisions can be made by a single judge and not by a collegial panel and the limitation period has been extended.

But today, if the urgency obliges the recourse to this form of justice, "  it is especially important that these procedures do not drag on and it is especially important that they do not enter into common law  ", warns the lawyer . For her part, Nicole Belloubet insists, “  the arrangements that have been made are temporary. [...]  The derogatory measures resulting from these orders will stop at the end of the Covid-19 epidemic and cannot be reactivated when a new epidemic occurs  ”.

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