No senior magistrate will go “on vacation” before the approximately 70,000 complaints of violence against children filed in France have been examined, within a month, the justice minister warned. Gérald Darmanin asked the attorneys general meeting at Place Vendôme on Monday June 8 to carry out this judicial audit, while an administrative investigation is underway to determine whether possible judicial dysfunctions may have preceded the Lyhanna affair.
In France, there is no separate and accelerated criminal procedure for cases of violence against minors. Complaints follow the ordinary criminal circuit. On the other hand, measures to protect minor victims can be taken, regardless of the progress of the investigation.
Filing a complaint
Complaints for violence against minors, whatever their nature, are filed with the police station or gendarmerie. Either by the child, who is not required to be accompanied by a parent, or by his parents or legal representatives.
The complaint is then transmitted to the public prosecutor (prosecution), generally very quickly – often by telephone (before the written procedure is transmitted) – so that the preliminary investigation can begin.
The minor’s rapid hearing
Among the priority acts of this investigation is the forensic examination, which serves to assess the nature and severity of the victim’s physical and psychological injuries.
The second priority concerns the hearing of the alleged victim. Child protection associations recommend that it be carried out within 24 to 72 hours, in order to preserve the spontaneity of the child’s story. This hearing is generally carried out the week following the filing of the complaint and sometimes several weeks or even months later, in the oldest and most complex cases.
The hearing of the minor victim must be carried out by trained investigators (minors brigade or minor referents) and is filmed, in order to avoid repeating it.
Temporary protective measures
Certain provisional child protection measures can be taken without waiting for the conclusions of the investigation. Before a judgment and even before the establishment of evidence, the public prosecutor can request it, if he judges that the minor risks being exposed to further violence.
These measures mainly concern the removal of the suspect: prohibition of contact with the victim or other minors, prohibition of appearing in certain places (school, etc.). The suspect can also be placed under judicial supervision or in police custody and then in pre-trial detention, for the most serious cases.
For violence committed within the family, the prosecutor can also urgently refer the matter to the children’s judge to decide whether the child should be placed with a third party, in a foster family or in a home.
The continuation of the investigation and the interview of the suspect
The rest of the investigation focuses on collecting evidence. Hearing witnesses close to the victim (parents, teachers or doctors) constitutes a key element. The victim can be interviewed again, at his request or that of the investigators. She may also be confronted by the suspect.
The investigators will also look for possible material and digital evidence (suspect’s telephone; social networks; messages; photos/videos). They can carry out searches. They can also implement wiretapping, visual surveillance or geolocation techniques.
Interviewing the suspect constitutes an essential act of the investigation, which can take place very early, in the middle of the investigations or at the end, in the form of a free interview or in police custody.
The victim is not necessarily kept informed of the progress of the investigation. She can question the police, the gendarmerie or the court to be informed.
Deadlines to respect
The investigation continues until the prosecution’s decision on the action to be taken. This can happen very quickly, but can take several months or even several years. The maximum duration is set at two years. In certain specific cases, the public prosecutor may, however, extend it twice for a period of one year.
Instruction and judgment
At the end of the investigations, the public prosecutor may request additional research or close the case without further action (insufficient evidence, unconstituted offense or unidentified perpetrator). He can also initiate proceedings before the criminal court for misdemeanors or the assize court for crimes (such as rape of minors).
Finally, and this is the most common case in cases of violence against minors, the prosecutor can decide to open a judicial investigation. The file is then entrusted to an investigating judge to carry out more in-depth investigations. To proceed directly to this stage of the investigation, a victim who has filed a complaint more than 3 months ago can file a new complaint with the establishment of a civil party directly with the investigating judge. This makes it possible to override a dismissal or lack of response from the prosecution.
A judicial investigation extends the deadlines. If there is a trial, it then takes place on average two to five years after the first complaint was filed.
Possible malfunctions
Malfunctions can occur at different stages of the process. At the very beginning, if the complaint is not raised quickly enough (or not at all) or if the facts reported are poorly qualified and considered non-urgent. The competent public prosecutor’s office is that of the place where the offense was committed, that of the suspect’s home or that of the place where he was arrested.
In cases of violence against minors, if the facts are repeated in several places over a long period, it is sometimes difficult to identify the correct prosecution.
Finally, delays, or “downtime” may occur during the investigation: hearing the minor or suspect too late; expert assessments not triggered; the exploitation of telephones or digital evidence still pending; the absence of relaunch of the prosecution…
All these aspects will be verified in the audit of tens of thousands of complaints of violence against minors filed in France.
