Police custody 'against the law'

POLICE in France are denying suspects the right to legal representation when taken in for questioning, the head of Paris's legal profession has claimed.

The bâtonnier de Paris Christian Charrière-Boumazel - the president of the Paris bar who represents 21,000 lawyers - said French custody conditions were illegal according to the EU.

He said the European Court of Human Rights had ruled in November 2008 and again last month that a suspect has a right to have a lawyer present from the moment they enter custody to organise their defence and prepare for questioning.

According to France Info, the French system allows a half-hour visit from a lawyer after an hour of custody to check that the suspect is well, but no right to discuss the case in detail or be present during questioning.

Lawyers are now using the legal flaw to demand that some of their cases be dropped. Le Figaro says the first decisions will be made in the coming weeks.

The number of people taken into police custody rose by 71% between 2001 and 2008, according to official figures from the Interior Ministry. Of the 580,000 suspects detained last year, 100,000 were kept for more than 24 hours.