For a file on the pollution of a watercourse, or on the destruction of the habitat of protected species, hundreds on drug trafficking, domestic violence and other common law cases. This is the daily life of a magistrate responsible for environmental offenses within a specialized department. “In volume, it’s nothing, it only represents one or two files out of a hundred”confides to franceinfo one of these experts, who would like to have more time to devote to her favorite subject.
However, this was the objective of a law of December 24, 2020. Since then, with certain exceptions, such as maritime pollution cases, crimes related to the environment are the responsibility of specialized regional centers. But these were created within common law courts: the public prosecutors and judges who are part of them must deal with these cases, but also many others.
Another obstacle to effective treatment of environmental damage: the appearance of these centers was not accompanied by job creation. Their results do not live up to their ambitions, deplores the magistrate interviewed by franceinfo. This she attributes in particular to limited resources, including for reporting cases and carrying out investigations:
“Environmental inspectors are not qualified to carry out large-scale investigations with financial and documentary research. They are used to detecting small infractions.”
A magistrate from a department specializing in environmental lawat franceinfo
“There are not enough environmental police officers and they lack material resources, she continues. IThere are barely a dozen per department, and there are many retirements to fill. These numbers do not allow real environmental policing on the national territory.” Shortcomings which are felt in the capacity of justice to take charge of these crimes: “When the regional environment centers were created, it was difficult to find files. which they could seize, due to lack of upstream reports, assures this magistrate.
A report from the Court of Cassation (link to pdf file)published in December 2022, thus underlined “the insufficiency of human and material resources, and intellectual tools, to support within the jurisdictions” the reforms put in place, decreasing “their real usefulness”. Disputes “in matters of environmental protection experienced by the French courts, they come up against significant limits”continues the report, which points in particular to the training of magistrates.
A start of a shift in training
However, the National School of Magistracy (ENM) has been providing continuing training on environmental justice for two years for practicing magistrates. “The younger we are, the more interest we have in environmental issues”, notes lawyer Sébastien Mabile, specialized in environmental criminal law, who intervened at the ENM as part of this program. “But training means taking a week off, going to Paris, and it’s on a voluntary basis. Environmental law is a complex subject, which requires technical and scientific insight.”
Climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte also participated in this training, to “present the key points of the IPCC report [le groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat, dont elle a coprésidé un groupe de travail] in order to make them accessible“. She spoke with serving magistrates, gendarmerie officers and even customs officers, who told her “a lot of talk about these new concepts which struggle to fit into a framework”.
“In France, we have thought about the law in terms of humans and we have difficulty thinking about the law of nature, of biodiversity.”
Valérie Masson-Delmotte, climatologistat franceinfo
The climatologist sees justice as one of the areas that can contribute to the fight against climate change. “There is a clear gap between the trajectories [de réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre] towards which we would like to go. and certain projects carried out in France, points out Valérie Masson-Delmotte. “That illustrates the need to evolve the law.”
A “hierarchy of values” problem
For Julien Bétaille, lecturer in environmental law at Toulouse Capitole University, the magistrates were not “until now not trained [à cette spécialité]not good and they weren’t interested.” “Environmental law is only taught in master’s degrees. And at ENM, it is not a priority, since future magistrates must learn everything”regrets the lawyer. “More broadly, there is a question of hierarchy of values. This is not specific to justice, but whatever anyone says, environmental questions remain secondary in everyone’s minds.”
However, an environmental awareness is awakening, illustrated in particular by the creation of a French Association of Magistrates for Environmental Justice. “We know that the environment is one of the biggest issues in the contemporary world, we feel among our fellow citizens a great expectation of justice and we have formed ourselves as a learned society to discuss our practices”explains its president Jean-Philippe Rivaud, also a prosecutor at the public prosecutor’s office at the Paris Court of Appeal.
The association’s magistrates talk about case law, the complexity of the law and everyday worries in an online discussion which brings together more than 300 members. The creation of a scientific council within the association is also in the works.
“Environmental law is closely linked to science. To understand the extent of global warming but also water pollution, the infiltration of chemicals into landfills or the protection of protected species, we need of a scientific opinion.”
Jean-Philippe Rivaud, president of the French Association of Magistrates for Environmental Justiceat franceinfo
For Jean-Philippe Rivaud, the lack of training for magistrates – “OWe never studied environmental law at university and we discovered it in the field.” – is also explained by the complexity of this right. This is what we observeBrother Michel Sastre, public prosecutor of Marseille, in charge of specialized centers. From maritime pollution to the numerous offenses in the Calanques National Park, including “the van of the entrepreneur who throws away his junk, or the traffic in goldfinches”, he sees everything pass. And it’s not always simple: “This right is based on a myriad of codes, we have to look for regulations everywhere. There is still a long way to go, but there is an awareness of civil society, and it is this that is making us evolve to legislate.”he admits.
Few trials due to lack of time
For lawyer Sébastien Mabile, environmental law is a “complex and extremely standardized law”. “An engineer’s right”, as he calls it, which is distinguished by a very weak criminal response. According to the report published in 2022 by the Court of Cassation, environmental offenses constitute only 0.5 to 1% of cases handled by the criminal courts. And when they are dealt with, alternative measures (reminders of the law, penal orders, fines, etc.) are often favored over a trial.
“Every four mornings, the prosecution has new priorities. At the moment, it’s drug trafficking, violence against people, domestic violence, so the environment is drowned out”, deplores environmental law lecturer Julien Bétaille. “The prosecutors say that they have to make figures, and that if they get their hands on an environmental file, they are blocking two or three days, where they could have processed 50 other files.
Most procedures are therefore settled before a trial. “It’s a sign that we don’t take this behavior seriously, believes Julien Bétaille. And then, we lose all the virtues of the trial, its solemn character.” For prosecutor Michel Sastre, “there are not enough hearings because there are so many common law cases, so many detainees, urgent matters… We do not yet have the capacity to judge everything. And yet, each Something has meaning.”
Towards a specialization of judges?
Highlighting a “lack of global ambition and translation of stated policies into practice”the Court of Cassation notably proposed in 2022 to “rewrite all environmental criminal law” to simplify it, “in view of the inflation in the number of offenses and the dispersal of repressive texts in several codes”.
For other actors, this complex area requires specialization of judges, as for terrorist justice or juvenile justice. “For truly effective environmental justice, we need specialized magistrates working full time on these technical files.”, explains a magistrate from one of the specialized regional centers. And to add: “Impunity for environmental offenses creates a breach of equality between citizens before the law: those who are responsible for the pollution of a factory are less severely punished than those who commit a traffic offense. feeling of injustice is strong.”
“We must structure the prosecutor’s offices, train and protect magistrates in this activity, full time, adds magistrate Jean-Philippe Rivaud. But behind that, we need more resources [pour enquêter]because if we specialize people, invest in training and behind that, there are only six files per year…”