OPINIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE FRENCH CGLPL video conference: the second additional protocol to the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters contemplates the possibility of hearing a witness or an expert from one state to another via this technical device. The European Court of Human Rights for its part has countenanced the use if it where necessitated by “legitimate aims under the Convention”, namely, prevention of disorder, prevention of crime, protection of the right to life and liberty and the safety of witnesses and victims, together with the “reasonable time” requirement in judicial proceedings (ECHR, 5th  January 2007, Marcello Viola v. Italy, n°45106/04, §72). 4/ France makes use of video conferencing in a number of instances that now concern, firstly, places of deprivation of liberty for foreigners, secondly psychiatric hospitals, and finally criminal procedure, including execution of sentences. With regard to places of deprivation of liberty for foreigners, it is prescribed that the intervention of the ordinary court, whether to extend the stay in a holding area of a foreigner without the necessary documents to enter France or to extend the administrative detention of a person subject to an expulsion measure, may take the form of exchanges by way of audiovisual telecommunications. Articles L. 2225 (as to the holding area) and L. 155-12 (as to administrative detention) of the Code governing foreigners’ entry and residence and the right of asylum make this process subject to threefold condition that there be a request for that purpose by the administrative authority (the prefect), that the foreigner, duly informed, has not objected to it, and that transmission is confidential. For care without consent involving hospitalisation, whose termination or continuation is subject to examination by the judge supervising releases and detention, the judge may hold court in a suitably equipped room of the hospital or have the patient placed there and communicate with him via audiovisual telecommunications. Article L.  3211-12-2 of the Public Health Code makes their use subject to two requirements: a medical opinion certifying that the procedure is compatible with the person’s condition, and no objection on his part. The same applies in the numerous eventualities of criminal procedure, particularly (Articles  706-71, 712-6, 712-13 of the Code of Criminal Procedure) to the examination or questioning of a person (chiefly one held by an examining judge) or of several persons to compare their 106