Friday September 29, the highest French administrative court must rule on the RIO (Repository of Identities and Organization), the identification number that the police must carry, which is not always the case. The Council of State is also studying a complaint from six NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, who want an end to controls based on appearance. They launched a group action against the State in 2021. An unprecedented approach.
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A young person perceived as black or Arab is twenty times more likely to be stopped by the police, the Defender of Rights indicated in 2017. For Me Antoine Lyon-Caen, lawyer for the NGOs who contacted the Council of State, the problem is profound: “ We have allowed a real system to be installed which makes facial checks possible. To eradicate this evil, a change in police culture is necessary. »
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The six associations are therefore calling for the modification of the Penal Code, in order to explicitly prohibit facial checks, to introduce the provision of a receipt, or even the creation of an independent body to lodge a complaint. Useless, replies Linda Kebbab, national delegate of the SGP Police Unit union, who criticizes the complainants for making a generalization based on a few isolated cases:
“ The Code of Criminal Procedure provides very exhaustively for the conditions for exercising identity checks, so in fact, the law is clear. That there are individuals within it who do not respect it is entirely possible, but from there to seizing the Council of State, I tell you that it is an ideological approach, with a desire to use judicial authority as a political platform. »
The state has already been condemned several times for discriminatory controls. Decisions relating to individual cases which did not lead to changes in the law.