France’s top administrative court Friday upheld the government’s authority to place individuals without any alleged link to terrorism under house arrest without judicial approval, adding legal backing to sweeping emergency powers that officials pushed through parliament last month in the wake of deadly terrorist attacks, reports The Wall Street Journal.
In the first high-court challenge to the government’s new powers, France’s Conseil d’Etat rejected demands by anti-nuclear activist Joël Domenjoud and six other environmentalists, including his brother, to overturn house-arrest orders the government had given them two weeks ago for the duration of Paris’s climate conference.
While the court agreed to send the underlying law permitting emergency house arrest to France’s constitutional court for review, it also determined that the government had appropriately balanced “respect for freedom and protection of public order” in the seven cases, including that of Mr. Domenjoud, a 33-year-old man who says he spent months preparing marches and other events timed to the climate talks.
Friday’s decision thrusts into high relief the debate between civil-liberties advocates and government officials over how far police powers should extend in the fight against terrorism following attacks in Paris, California and elsewhere.
French officials, including Prime Minister Manuel Valls, say extraordinary powers are necessary to protect civil liberties from an existential threat posed by Islamic State. Mr. Domenjoud and his lawyers say a country that has long defined itself as a defender of human rights is heading down a slippery slope.
“If vague information from surveillance briefings, assembled under unknown circumstances, can be used to put environmentalists under house arrest, why not tomorrow students or union leaders?” Denis Garreau, a lawyer for Mr. Domenjoud, asked during Friday’s hearing. “Any man who has power is tempted to abuse it.”
French officials have moved quickly to adopt a hard line. Before the November 13th attacks were over, French President François Hollande declared a state of emergency, using the special power to ban all public protests in Paris. Three days later, he assembled the French legislature at the Château de Versailles - once home to the French monarchy - for a martial address demanding changes to the French constitution.
Officials quickly took up the mantle. Later that week the French parliament extended the state of emergency through February, giving the government wide authority to conduct raids and detain people without prior judicial review, regardless of their alleged links to terrorism.
Legislators and other government officials also floated a wish list of additional security measures, including limiting the use of encryption software and the possibility of temporarily imprisoning anyone on government watch lists for potential links to terrorism, according to a person familiar with the list. In a sign that the government takes the latter possibility somewhat seriously, officials have asked the same administrative court that ruled Friday to offer an opinion on the idea, a court official said.
France has been boosting its powers for some time. A 2013 law gives intelligence services real-time access to data on individuals’ internet and phone traffic. Another passed after the January attacks grants intelligence services the ability to install devices that comb internet traffic for signs of terrorist activity.
Other legislation from 2014 aimed to rein in radicalization by boosting penalties for “defending terrorism,” leading to pressure on big Internet companies. In January, police questioned an eight-year-old boy under suspicion of defending terrorism connection with comments he made at school.
French officials say that new tools are needed to protect people from new threats. “I would rather be alive and have a civil servant look into my private life, than the other way around,” one former French intelligence official said.
Friday’s case concerns a particularly controversial element of the French government’s emergency powers: house arrest.
In normal times, judges can order people charged with a crime to be held under house arrest, meaning they can’t leave their local municipality, and must check in at a police station three times a day. But under a state of emergency, the government can do so based on only “serious reasons” to believe a person could be a threat to public order. Since the attacks, the government has put more than 350 people under house arrest in France, France’s interior ministry says.
Many are Muslim residents whom the government alleges have ties to radical Islamist movements. But lawyers for people under house arrest say they aren’t given specific evidence they can challenge. “This sends a message that the government thinks democracy and the rule of law are not strong enough to defeat terrorism,” said Marie Doré, a lawyer for several people under house arrest. “That is appalling.”