Reform of police custody: "the police will lose in authority"

Reform of police custody: "the police will lose in authority"




Reform of police custody: "the police will lose in authority"
By Yves Montuelle, the .fr Express





Police unions fear a badly balanced reform that strengthens the rights of the defence without widening matching those of the investigators.
REUTERS/Darren Staples
While Parliament finally adopted the reform of custody, the police fear it is diverting the work of the investigators.

While the reform of police custody was finally adopted in Parliament on Tuesday, the text does not unanimity in the police. Security forces fear that the ubiquity of counsel in the proceedings impedes the functioning of the investigation.
Police unions fear a badly balanced reform that strengthens the rights of the defence without widening matching those of the investigators.
The "no" of the PS
PS deputies voted against the Bill reforming custody to not be "accomplices of a mess" organized by the Executive, explained Tuesday Bruno Le Roux, spokesman for the PS Group, which was declined at first reading.
"It would have had a reform of the criminal procedure in its together to allow a consolidation of the process of the investigation and not only a redesign of the guard view" regret Jean-Claude Delage, Secretary General of the National Alliance Police Union.
The presence of counsel during custody is the central point of the reform. It is also the point of the most important disagreement: this component is seen by officials as an obstacle to the success of the police investigation. Interrogation, "the human report which creates between the investigator and the detained is essential", reflects Jean-Claude Delage. According to him, "confidence that installs between the police and the suspect may lead him to make the revelations, or confession".
Another reserve issued by the police: the right to silence. "This is ridiculous!" This right already exists! "If a person kept in view not to speak, she does not speak", says Michel Thooris, Secretary General of the France Police Union. "The suspects used already", adds Jean-Claude Delage. Worse, believes the Secretary General of Alliance, the recognition of the right to silence "a loss of authority" of the police in custody. "In telling a suspect that he has the right to remain silent, we we put in a position of inferiority", he said.
We suspected to be torturers
The framework, including by counsel, excavations at body is also incomprehension of the police. "We conduct searches for the benefit of the kept in view, for their safety," said Michel Thooris, according to which this practice is all too often "stigmatized". "We suspected to be torturers", still regrets Jean-Claude Delage.
And remember in unison that most searches aim to look for objects with which the suspects would be tempted to commit suicide or hit other inmates. "In the end, which lost it is the detained who will have to undress before an additional person", said the Secretary General of the France Police Union.
Synergy, Alliance and the independent Union of Commissioners of police are questioning also '' pharaonic' cost' of such a reform and ensure "that the majority of police premises is not adapted to a presence almost permanent lawyers".
The Court of cassation must render a decision Friday, which could accelerate the implementation of this reform of police custody, while the Constitutional Council had set July 1 as deadline.