Audrey Berrier has just returned from vacation, and his time is already running out. “I still have at least two to three hours of work ahead of me,” says this sentence enforcement judge (JAP), as the clock hands are already approaching 7 p.m. Section delegate of the Union of Magistrates’ Union (USM) at the Brest Judicial Court, the 30-year-old admits having to complete between “30 and 40 cases a day” to stay afloat, working between twelve and thirteen hours daily. On his desk, the files are piling up, reminding the magistrate of the number of litigants awaiting a final decision concerning their conviction. As a JAP, Audrey’s role is to set the main terms of execution of the sentences pronounced by the criminal courts or the assize courts of her jurisdiction, via, among other things, possible sentence adjustments: wearing of an electronic bracelet, community service, day fines, semi-freedom.
But the magistrate warns: faced with the number of cases to be processed, “the judicial institution is suffering”. And would no longer be able to absorb files quickly enough. Although the reform of the Belloubet law, which came into force in March 2020, limited pre-incarceration accommodation to sentences of less than or equal to one year’s imprisonment – compared to two years previously – Audrey indicates that she deals with convictions every day ” old”, dating back several months or even several years. “We are in May 2022, and I worked again this morning on sentences handed down in 2019 and 2020, sometimes for facts dating back to 2017. Two years later, we are entitled to ask ourselves the question of the meaning of the sentence. What do we expect of the condemned so long after? The JAP admits it: when it applies these old sentences, its level of requirement is not the same as if the sanction had been pronounced the day before. “People’s journey has often changed, people have sometimes matured, evolved. We have to adapt the sentence,” she explains, aware of the paradox of the situation. “It must be said that litigants are therefore not all treated in the same way. For the same reprehensible act, you will have a different arrangement depending on the criminal policy of the prosecution service concerned and the number of cases handled by the latter”.
“It’s not satisfactory”
Since Bobigny, Elise Lebas abounds. Vice-president of the National Association of Sentence Enforcement Judges (ANJAP), this JAP evokes sometimes “exponential” delays for convicts in the Paris region, victims despite themselves of the shortage of staff within the institution. judicial. “For lack of clerks, some judgments are typed six months, a year after the conviction. Then for lack of administrative assistants, these files are still registered weeks later within the sentence enforcement service, sometimes rendered incomplete. The delay can accumulate at each link of the chain”, she develops. Not to mention the increase in delays in the event of an appeal of the decision or the absence of the litigant during his conviction. “Sometimes we have people who are meant [notifiées de leur condamnation, NDRL] two or three years after the judge’s decision. This then considerably lengthens the handling of the files”. If the Ministry of Justice indicates to L’Express that in 2021, the average time for the execution of a sentence in France (excluding the warrant of committal) was established at 13.6 months, it is not uncommon for delays to explode in certain jurisdictions. Recently, for example, Elise Lebas had to rule on the case of a person sentenced to two months’ imprisonment in 2015 for acts outrages and rebellions dating back to 2010. “In the meantime, the person had not reoffended, and had fallen seriously ill. So I adapted to his current situation, and I converted his sentence into day fines. Whereas at the time, it could have been community service, for example. We adjust with regard to the offense committed and the evolution of the person.
Faced with this kind of situation, “classic” according to the JAP, Elise Lebas admits to having the impression of “emptying the sea with a small spoon”, trying to prioritize the most serious and oldest facts. “Which is not satisfactory”, she regrets, specifying that between two, “time plays its role” … For better or for worse. “Facts that could have been considered very serious five years ago are no longer so serious five years later. And conversely, if we delay too long and the person reoffends, there may be incarceration which could have been avoided”. A statement shared by Amélie Morineau, lawyer at the Paris Bar and member of the French lawyers’ union. “The delay in the implementation of a sanction is also the delay in the follow-up of psychological care, work on addiction, support to pass his license… Which keeps the convict in a situation of precariousness which, as we know, is a factor in taking action”, she underlines. To the point that these delays could encourage recidivism? “It’s far from being a generality. But it seems quite obvious that to pronounce a sanction which is not directly followed by an execution, a follow-up, it is quite illegible as a message sent to the condemned”, slice she.
“This is no longer possible”
On the Créteil side, Samra Lambert, sentence enforcement judge and national secretary of the Syndicat de la Magistrature (SM), does not hide her weariness. “Of course, these delays in the execution of sentences do not concern all jurisdictions and all cases. But we are in such a shortage of means in certain places that we are obliged to prioritize and graduate the various treatments”, she lets go. In her jurisdiction, more than 12,000 criminal decisions are, according to her, awaiting execution: “Convicted persons thus arrive before the JAP five years late: in Créteil, I almost only deal with old sentences, dating for example from 2018, or even sometimes 2015 or 2016.” For both victims and convicts, this gray area is unbearable. “Victims are worried about not being compensated, while some litigants get angry with the reception service, call us regularly to be fixed and to be able to carry out their sentence… They all want to move on . And we can’t give them a quick answer.”
So much so that in Créteil, the new prosecutor Stéphane Hardouin would not “forbid himself”, according to our colleagues from the Figaro, to classify certain decisions that are too old and relate to the least serious facts – with the exception of attacks on persons and probationary follow-ups. Contacted by L’Express, the latter did not wish to communicate further on the subject. “But we have reached a point where effectively, driving without insurance dating from 2018 no longer seems to be a priority in 2022. As soon as the person has not been unfavorably known since, this penalty will therefore perhaps be classified rather than converted to community service,” says Samra Lambert. The magistrate also indicates, too, to show a “necessary” adaptation in the face of the oldest convictions. In this context, are the decisions rendered really fair? “There is a real philosophical debate that arises. This is the whole paradox: do we want a machine that grinds, that is to say, to judge quickly to judge, or to take the time to deliver efficient justice?” , replies the magistrate.
“It all depends on the appreciation of the magistrates. Some will say that it remains serious, others will consider that the time spent lessens the seriousness of the acts committed”, analyzes for her part Béatrice Brugère, general secretary of the FO Magistrates Units union. “But when you enter a complex process where the deadlines modify the responses to such an extent, the latter are often counterproductive”, she believes, denouncing a “saturated” system. “There is a loss of efficiency and meaning, with consequences of moral and physical exhaustion for the magistrates”. More than six months after publication in The world from a platform bringing together 3,000 magistrates denouncing a justice “which does not listen and times everything”, Samra Lambert has the feeling that nothing has really changed. “We are always forced to work in very difficult conditions. The body gets tired, and the loss of meaning is there”.