a controversial decree against violence

Last December, deputy Aurélien Pradier proposed a law in which protection orders were granted more quickly by the judge: 6 days instead of 42.
This tool for protecting women who face domestic violence is granted by the judge for family affairs.
How does it work when you apply for a protection order? Here are Caroline de Haas' explanations in a Mediapart post: “After receiving the victim protection order application, the judge must first schedule a hearing. The hearing allows to hear madam and sir and to observe the elements brought to show the danger. The victim and the perpetrator can be heard separately. And it is after the hearing has been held that the judge now has 6 days to render his decision. "
This protection order device is extremely valuable to complete the filing of a complaint, especially since most feminicides occur when the victim leaves the home and his spouse
On May 27, a decree to put this proposed law into practice introduced a new problematic rule. He gives the victim a maximum of 24 hours to inform his violent spouse, by bailiff, of the procedure opened against him. This period starts when the judge sets a hearing date to review the application for a protection order
If this deadline is not respected, the request automatically lapses, without any power of appreciation of the judge, thus causing the impossibility to act and even the need to start the procedure again.
The controversy is not only over this period, but also over the obligation for the victim to inform his spouse by way of a bailiff. This procedure has a cost that it is up to the victim to bear. As two lawyers write, Jean-Michel Garry and Aurore Boyard, “The victim, often penniless, weakened and frightened, is forced, at his expense, to have all the procedural documents served on his opponent, to file them at the court office, all within an imperative and almost untenable time limit of twenty-four hours count from the order fixing the hearing date. ”
Faced with this, an amendment was proposed: that the protection order be notified by the public prosecutor or by the administrative route, so that the costs are not borne by the victim. "It is a police officer or gendarme who delivers the summons and we thus resolve the question of the 24 hour delay ", according to the author of the amendment, Marie-Pierre de la Gontrie. The measure has been adopted but has yet to be examined by the joint joint committee, responsible for arriving at a common text.

Video by Clara Poudevigne