if so desired; the current Prisons Act provides for the compulsory filing of such documents at the registry; yet, the conditions of operation of the latter do not provide any better guarantee of the necessary confidentiality. It should therefore be possible to choose between either keeping personal documents in the cell or in the registry. However, in the latter case, confidentiality needs to be guaranteed by appropriate practical means. The possibility of making copies should be provided, without any possibility of the amount chargeable to the prisoner being greater than their production cost. Under the conditions of the Act of 17th July 1978 (access to administrative documents and reuse of public data), of which nobody has ever disputed the applicability to prisons, every prisoner has the right to examine certain administrative documents. Today in France, it is particularly shocking to ascertain that prisoners cannot gain access to the established texts governing prison conditions. The Journal Officiel cannot be found in prison libraries, nor can any substitute thereof or compendium of circulars. The passing on of official texts is not organised by the prisons administration department, other than in the form of department memoranda (poorly) displayed in passageways. As a result, prisoners do not, for example, have the benefit of the right, to which every citizen is entitled, to dispute the legality of texts applicable to them before a judge: once again, no provision has ever been made that this right should not apply to prisoners. It is time for prisons to bring themselves into line with legal norms under ordinary law with regard to the texts applicable to them and access to administrative documents generally speaking. The opinion indicates ways and means of achieving this. 1.2.3 Mothers and Young Children in Prison Current rules authorise imprisoned mothers to keep their children with them until they reach eighteen months of age6. This constitutes a compromise, unsatisfactory by its very nature, between the double necessity of not separating children from their parents7 and the prohibition – except in case of absolute necessity – of imprisonment of children8, above all, as in the scenarios described below, when they are indeed entirely without blame. This possibility comprises two different scenarios: imprisonment of a mother accompanied by a young child and imprisonment of a pregnant woman who then gives birth to a child9. The first case is extremely rare (in general more or less suitable alternative solutions are found); the second is therefore the more frequent of the two scenarios. It applies to several dozen cases every year, the terms of which are governed by a circular of April 1999. The opinion comes after meticulous inquiries by the Contrôle Général in three of these institutions10. There are inadequacies in the practical facilities possessed by the institutions, which present very different situations. Some of the latter flout the provisions of the circular of 1999, including in recent establishments. The least well-equipped are the “nurseries” comprising few 6 Until 4 years of age before 1945. Cf. in particular articles 3 and 18 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 20th November 1989, applicable in France. 8 Article 37 of the same Convention. 9 Out of 2,017 women imprisoned at 1st October 2012, 1,751 (87%) were 50 years of age or older and 1,317 (65%) 40 or younger. 10 Consultable on the cglpl.fr website. 17 7