Section 3 Discipline and Sanctions in Places of Deprivation of Liberty. Do the principles set out in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 26 th August 1789 stop at the threshold of places of deprivation of liberty, as far as the punishment of breaches of internal order within these institutions is concerned? In other terms, does the rule of law have its place there and, if so, what is the precise boundary thereof? These are fundamental issues with regard to respect for captives’ rights: in the first place with regard to prisons, though after more than four years of inspections, the experience of the Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté has shown that they also concern all other places of deprivation of liberty. The principle of the lawfulness of offences and punishments sometimes appears far removed from places of deprivation of liberty. Nevertheless, it must be recalled that the general principles of the laws of the French Republic, as well as the provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, cannot be subject to any limitations in their field of application. Here we intend to examine the application of the rules, whether written or otherwise, that are used to punish behaviours considered wrongful within communities of captives. Due to the shortness of their stays in such places, persons placed in police custody or in the jails of law courts are excluded from this examination. In the course of the completion of their duties, the inspectors have become convinced of the existence of considerable differences between types of institutions with regard to discipline and sanctions. Since the Hardouin et Marie ruling made by the French Council of State in 1995 194, disciplinary measures in the prison environment are no longer considered to be simple measures of internal order and are henceforth subject to ex post facto control on the part of administrative judges. For its part, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has been led to pronounce on the definition and contours of such internal order within places of captivity on numerous occasions. It laid down several principles in the ruling Ezeh and Connors vs. United Kingdom 195 delivered by the Grand Chamber on 9th October 2003: although it considers that disciplinary actions do not come within the scope of article 6 of the ECHR, in particular with regard to the need to respect the principles of fair trial, on the other hand the Court itself reserves the right to define the respective contours of the criminal and disciplinary fields. 194 Arrêt Hardouin et Marie, French Council of State, 17th February 1995, Rec. Lebon p. 82 and 85. th See in particular ECtHR GC 9 October 2003 Ezehet Connors vs. United Kingdom and Etienne Vergès, La Cour européenne des droits de l’homme et la disciplinaire pénitentiaire [“The European Court of Human Rights and Prison Discipline”] in the journal Droit pénal No. 6, June 2004, study 7 and, for an updated analysis: Jean-Paul Céré, La procédure disciplinaire pénitentiaire à l'épreuve de la jurisprudence de la cour européenne des droits de l'homme [“Prison Disciplinary Proceedings tested by the case law of the European Court of Human Rights”, AJ Pénal 2012, pp. 533-536. 195 100