In New Caledonia, justice orders to enhance detention situations in Nouméa jail | EUROtoday

The administrative courtroom of New Caledonia ordered, Tuesday, October 28, the jail administration to take pressing measures to enhance detention situations, deemed opposite to human dignity, inside the principle jail of the archipelago, positioned in Nouméa.

Seized by 50 detainees in an unprecedented process, the choose thought-about that the overcrowding and unsanitary situations of the Camp-Est penitentiary heart “seriously and manifestly illegally violate the right not to suffer inhuman or degrading treatment”.

In his order, the president of the courtroom orders the administration “to take all measures which appear likely to improve the material conditions of installation of prisoners sleeping on mattresses placed on the ground”. He additionally orders ” as soon as possible “ of “remedy the excessive presence of pests” And “to ensure the separation of the sanitary block in the shared cells”. The State was additionally ordered to pay 2,000 euros to every of the plaintiffs for procedural prices.

“It’s a victory for the inmates of the Nouméa penitentiary center”welcomed their lawyer, M^e Charlie Salkazanov. “The judge recognized the indignity of their conditions of detention (…) The unity of the prisoners created strength. »

Up to 5 inmates for 2 beds

However, this choice stays restricted. The courtroom didn’t connect a penalty to its injunctions and didn’t require {that a} mattress be allotted to every detainee, as requested by the candidates. The president of the courtroom estimated that jail overcrowding, “however unacceptable it may be”didn’t report back to the abstract choose “given the scale of the phenomenon” And “because the prison administration has no decision-making power in matters of detention”.

During the listening to on October 22, Camp-Est administration acknowledged that sure cells of 10 to 12 sq. meters housed as much as 5 detainees for 2 beds, and that the presence of pests – cockroaches, rats, centipedes – remained recurrent.

Camp-Est, which has been singled out a number of occasions by the overall controller of locations of deprivation of liberty, had already been the topic of convictions in 2023 for non-execution of labor ordered by the courts.