The French Ministry of Justice is again ordered to improve the living conditions of prisoners in the Toulouse-Seysses prison. Lawyers from the Toulouse Bar and the International Observatory of Prisons had seized the administrative court at the end of July. They demanded that the State respect the first injunctions of the court concerning the quality of life of the detainees. He had only partially respected them.
Detainees with toilet paper in their ears to protect themselves from cockroaches, broken toilets or poor medical care, this is what led the International Prison Observatory and the Toulouse Bar to seize the court again administrative.
According to its decision, the Ministry of Justice did not respect three of the eleven injunctions which had been addressed to it. For Pierre Dunac, president of the Toulouse bar, this is an observation shared by the administration of the Toulouse-Seysses prison: “It is not the prison administration that burdens the living conditions of its own prisoners. At any given time, there are a certain number of means to implement, decisions to be made, and these decisions are not taken at the level of an establishment, they are taken above. »
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With this decision, he hopes that the Ministry of Justice will put the means. Mathieu Quinquis hopes so too. He is president of the French section of the International Observatory of Prisons.
“The administrative judge confirms that the administration cannot only allow itself to be condemned, he said. Today there are 72,000 detainees who are exposed to the risk of inhuman and degrading treatment and I believe that a country like France cannot tolerate this, and should not put up with it. »
The president of the OIP considers that the court’s decision is too conciliatory with the State. The association does not rule out appealing.
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