European rights court orders sentence for France over detention of child

By Cindi Cook

PARIS (AA) – The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday handed down a sentence to France for involving in the detention of a child from Georgia in 2020.

The child, an eight-year-old girl, entered into France with her parents in 2019, with media reporting that the family had been detained in an administrative detention center in the eastern Metz-Queuleu region sometime thereafter for two weeks.

The court ruled that a detention period of 14 days was an “excessive” period and that a child of such a young age “cannot be considered as having sufficient discernment to understand the situation,” and that the situation placed her in “particular vulnerability.” The detention center in which the family was placed is next to a penitentiary center.

It also ordered France to pay a fine of €5,000 ($5,500) for “moral damages” to the minor.

The Strasbourg-based court further said that the authorities in this detention subjected the eight-year-old to treatment that exceeded the limit of severity provided for in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which concerns the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment.

The family was deported on Nov. 20, 2020.