You should be able to meet with your lawyer without restrictions and without supervision or monitoring.
According to French law, meetings with your defence lawyer should be confidential – they must not be monitored or listened to by the prison administration. Those meetings will take place in a specific visiting room, in which your conversation may not be monitored or listened to.
Designation and communication permit
To communicate and meet with your lawyers, they must be issued a communication permit. The conditions to be issued a permit vary depending on your status:
- if you are awaiting trial, you should make your lawyer known to the head of the prison, or your lawyer may inform the judge in charge of your case that you have chosen him. The communication permit is then issued to your lawyer by the judge in charge of your case.
- If you are a condemned prisoner, the communication permit is issued by the sentence enforcement judge (in French juge d’application des peines), or by the head of the prison.
Monitoring
The Penitentiary Code strictly forbids the monitoring or surveillance of a meeting between you and your lawyer. There are no exceptions to this provision. If you are awaiting trial, the judge may forbid you from communicating for up to 20 days. However, this ban does not apply to lawyers, as stated both by the Code of Criminal Procedure and by the Penitentiary Code.
What human rights violation may there be?
Restrictions, monitoring or listening to your meetings with your lawyer will violate your right to respect for your private life and correspondence.
example If a letter from your lawyer consulting you on a family-related dispute contains private information, the reading of such letter may violate your right to a private life.
As restricting, monitoring or listening to the meetings with your lawyer may also affect your criminal case, your right to a fair trial may also be violated. Therefore, if your conversations or meetings with your lawyer have been restricted, monitored or listened to, you should include this fact in your submissions to the court.
If you believe that your rights have been violated, you should first complain to the prison administration to prevent future violations. Read more about how to complain.