Parliamentarians propose a “specialized pole” dedicated to domestic violence

The conclusions of the parliamentary mission on the judicial treatment of domestic violence (VIF) were eagerly awaited. After several calendar adjustments, the report will finally be submitted this Monday, May 22 to the Keeper of the Seals by the centrist senator Dominique Vérien and the Renaissance deputy Émilie Chandler. The two parliamentarians had to decide in particular on the advisability of creating a court specializing in domestic violence, on the model of Spanish justice, which has become a reference in the fight against violence against women.

In the end, the mission did not retain this option, requested by the associations but discarded by the Chancellery. Instead, it advocates the creation of a “specialized unit” in each jurisdiction, with a team trained and dedicated to dealing with domestic violence, coordinated by a local steering committee. Supported by the ministry, this proposal could be implemented by decree “in the coming months”. The Keeper of the Seals also validated the principle of a “VIF portal”, a file containing information on the perpetrators of violence and the victims, managed by the Ministry of the Interior.

First called “chambers”, these “poles” will therefore not be “specialized courts”, as Emmanuel Macron had proposed during the presidential campaign. “This option supposed to create a court in each department, which is not possible on a budgetary level, justifies Dominique Vérien. With the organization we are proposing, magistrates and prosecutors will be able to be both outside and inside. The objective is for the family court judge, the criminal judge and the juvenile judge to work together. There must be a real flow of information to avoid contradictory decisions. Today, it happens that a man is condemned to the penal and that the judge with the children is not informed. To better protect the victims, the parliamentary mission also proposes to shorten to 24 hours the period of the protection order in the event of “extreme urgency”. This “will be issued by the family affairs judge without adversarial debate, in a derogatory and provisional manner, before the classic procedure”, specifies the ministry.

Françoise Brié, director of the National Solidarity Women’s Federation (FNSF), welcomes the report’s proposals, “at this stage of the information”, she specifies. However, she would have liked the notion of danger to be removed from “ordinary” protection orders because “the risk for women is real in ordinary everyday situations, especially when the violent man recovers the children”, she recalls. . Cécile Mamelin, vice-president of the Union of magistrates, wonders about the means allocated to these specialized poles: “Justice is already in a state of” advanced dilapidation “, according to the terms of the report submitted to Éric Dupond-Moretti during the Estates General, and I fear that this choice will be made to the detriment of other disputes. The parliamentary mission has requested a “dedicated fund”, not yet confirmed by the ministry, indicates Dominique Vérien who hopes that at least “a third of the 1,500 judges, 1,500 clerks and 7,000 legal assistants recruited over five years will be assigned to the treatment of domestic violence”.

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