Of course, full monitoring of its specific observations by the CGLPL is carried out during
follow-up visits. For detention centres for illegal immigrants and juvenile detention centres, a second
round of inspections began in 2012 because of the low number of these institutions in which the
CGLPL often currently conducts third inspections. For penal institutions, this second round did not
begin until 2014, when the CGLPL had completed a first round of inspections. However, for police
custody facilities and mental health institutions, this first round of inspections is still in progress.
It therefore appeared worthwhile, at shorter intervals than is currently the case
with follow-up visits, conducting declarative monitoring of the CGLPL's
recommendations through an exchange with the Ministries, three years after the
inspection, for all inspections conducted after the current Chief Inspector of
places of deprivation of liberty took office, so since July 2014, with the exception
of inspections in police custody facilities. As such, below you will find an
account of the exchanges held between the CGLPL and the Government
through the second half of 2017 on the recommendations that the latter had
received during the second half of 2014.
These observations can take the form of "recommendations" when it is a matter of calling on
the authorities - with more or less insistence according to the severity of the violations to fundamental
rights - to put an end to such violations. They can also take the form of "good practices"; in this case
it is a matter of bringing to the attention of a minister or institution director an identified original and
reproducible practice aimed at improving or guaranteeing the respect of such-and-such a right of
people deprived of their liberty. Indication of this good practice should be understood by the
authorities as an invitation to roll it out more widely, in the form they see fit (circular, training tool,
internal memo, methodological guide, industrial standard, etc.).
General recommendations are those that bear on a right or a series of rights of a category of
people deprived of their liberty, but not, in principle, on an identified institution - save where they are
of such significance that they have given rise to an official publication (which happens no more than
two or three times a year). These are therefore recommendations issued in thematic reports or
opinions, in published observations - possibly in an emergency - as well as in the CGLPL's annual
reports, which are also submitted to the Government.
1.2
Findings from the first exercise
The monitoring carried out in 2017 therefore constitutes a prototype, which has been simplified since
it only bears on one semester. The procedure selected, to which it will of course be possible to make
minor adjustments in the future, was as follows:
A statement of the recommendations and observations sent to the Government over the
period in question was submitted to each of the ministers concerned on 12 July 2017; this statement
also included the responses that the Government had initially given to the CGLPL. These ministers
were asked to inform the CGLPL, by 15 October, of:
-
their position as regards the recommendations about which their predecessor had not
replied;
-
any changes in position they might wish to clarify in relation to the responses that were
initially given;
-
the practical measures taken since the last response.
In addition, a handful of specific questions were asked.
Although the CGLPL had announced it was going to carry out this new exercise back in
March 2017, when the annual report for 2016 was published, it seems to have caught the authorities
by surprise, for only the Ministry of Health was in a position to send back a response within the
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