French pass bill on lifelong internment for deranged convicts

Jan 10, 2008, 11:09 GMT

Paris - The French National Assembly has passed a controversial bill allowing the internment for life of a mentally ill criminal after he has served his prison sentence, the daily Le Monde reported on its website on Thursday.

The bill, which was passed late Wednesday, calls for the establishment of a multi-disciplinary commission, which includes a psychologist, judge, lawyer and the victim, that would decide if the criminal is to be placed in a secure medical-judicial centre after his prison sentence expires.

The evaluation would be carried out one year before the criminal is due to be released from jail.

The initial decision would place the convict in the internment centre for one year, but it could be renewed every year without limit, until the end of the ex-convict's life.

Currently, French law limits incarceration to a maximum of 22 years, even for those sentenced to life in prison.

The bill was inspired by last August's kidnapping and rape of a 5- year-old boy by a 61-year-old paedophile who had just been released from prison.

Originally, the law was to have been applied only to those convicted of serious crimes against minors, such as murder and rape, but the deputies extended it to apply to anyone convicted of a serious crime and sentenced to at least 15 years in prison.

The bill has been harshly condemned by the opposition Socialists, with former justice minister Elisabeth Gigou charging it was inspired by the same 'positivist philosophy that led to the worst excesses of Nazi Germany.'

Another former Socialist justice minister, Robert Badinter, under whose ministry France abolished the death penalty, condemned the bill because it imprisoned a person 'not because of a crime with which he was charged, nor a crime for which he was condemned, but for a virtual crime, a crime he could perhaps commit if he were free.'

Justice Minister Rachida Dati defended her bill by saying the detention it prescribed was not a sentence but 'a security measure.'

The bill must now be approved by the Senate, before returning to the National Assembly to be formally passed into law.