2.4 Opinion of 13 June 2013 concerning the possession of personal documents by prisoners and their access to documents that can be made available for discovery and inspection Following this opinion, which was published in the Journal officiel (Official Gazette) dated 11 July 2013 and did not receive any comments on the part of the Ministry of Justice, the Prison Administration Director shared her comments with the CGLPL on 16 September 2016. 2.4.1 Scrap the compulsory submission of documents mentioning grounds for committal filed at the institution's registry The CGLPL believes that this measure, pursuant to Article 42 of the Prison Act of 24 November 2009, which usefully protects the prisoner from the curiosity of his or her fell ow prisoners as well as warders, also has unfortunate consequences in that it places a large number of physical obstacles – usually indirect – in the way of prisoners being able to consult documents relating to them and which are sometimes essential for the management of their legal proceedings. In light of this twofold observation, the CGLPL has therefore recommended that each person detained may choose either to file with the registry the documents mentioning his or her grounds for committal or to keep them with them in their cell. As such, the CGLPL considers that it is the prison administration's responsibility – subject to the necessary checks - to ensure that the personal nature of documents is respected. To that end it recommends: - that each detained person has access to the necessary stationery for guaranteeing confidentiality; - that each cell contain, for each of the people accommodated within, a cupboard that can be locked, as already exists in some institutions; - that the documents found in the cupboards during searches should be examined in the presence of the prisoner and only by officers or sergeants specially appointed by the head of the institution for the sole purpose of searching for banned goods or substances; this excludes examining the documents themselves for the purpose of reading them, insofar as the law does not authorise the prison administration to read any other document than the ones it is checking pursuant to Article 40 of the Prison Act, on the written correspondence of prisoners; - that no document, whether or not placed in these cupboards, is destroyed during searches. The prison administration does not agree with the CGLPL and considers that Article 42 of the Prison Act, as it is currently written: "establishes a balanced protocol that respects the rights of prisoners and meets the need for maintaining public order and security within prisons and for preventing offences." It feels that the searches conducted in prisoners' cells can "uncover certain documents the contents of which raise suspicions of the existence of trafficking or plans to escape" and that "the compulsory submission of personal documents to the registry not only ensures their confidentiality but also enables the administration to conduct the necessary security checks in prisons". It stresses that cell searches are conducted without the prisoners being present, which would be at odds with the public security objectives. The requirement that an officer or sergeant be present during such searches is therefore not justified in its opinion given the low number of such ranks among the staff and furthermore because warders are authorised to conduct cell searches. 60