justice orders the prefect of police of Paris to publish bans on night gatherings in advance

The administrative court of Paris ordered, Tuesday, April 4, the police headquarters of the capital to publish on its site the decrees prohibiting night gatherings against the pension reform before their entry into force. The Association for the Defense of Constitutional Liberties (Adelico), the League for Human Rights (LDH), the Syndicate of Lawyers of France (SAF), the Syndicate of the Judiciary (SM) as well as individual applicants had seized Friday the court in summary release (emergency).

These organizations denounced the taking “in catimini” of decrees since March 17 prohibiting gatherings in a large part of the center of the capital, resulting in verbalizations up to 135 euros. They pointed out that these daily decrees were the subject of a publication “very random” and were for some published after their entry into force. On March 27, the decree was for example published online at 5:30 p.m., 30 minutes after the start of the ban.

“Violation of various fundamental freedoms”

“We are not in the maintenance of order but in a strategy which aims to discourage people from going to demonstrate”argued Jean-Baptiste Soufron, lawyer for certain applicants, while participation in an undeclared demonstration is not illegal. Lionel Crusoé, also counsel for the applicants, had considered that these practices bore “violation of various fundamental freedoms”especially “the right to an effective remedy”that is to say the possibility for citizens to take legal action to contest the decrees.

It was on the basis of the “right to an effective remedy” that the court ruled in favor of the applicants, by requiring the prefecture to publish “on the website of the prefecture within a period allowing” to file an appeal against him. “This is an important decision that protects the fundamental rights and freedoms of every person”greeted the applicants in a joint press release.