Seventy-five euros in compensation per day of wrongful imprisonment: that’s what, on average, our judicial system awards to the unfortunate souls it has unjustly crushed. Unless, of course, your name is Bernard Tapie or you were acquitted in the Outreau case. His story has never been told. Yet, it gives pause for thought. On July 3, 2002, based solely on the testimony of a woman who believes she recognized him, Richard Laurent was accused of rape, arrested at his home, and brutally thrown in prison. “I didn’t understand what was happening to me; it was a nightmare,” confides the 57-year-old railway worker, married and father of three. A few months later, still incarcerated, he saw a prisoner accused of pedophilia arrive in his cell, who also proclaimed his innocence. “Like mine, his investigating judge had condemned him in advance, without giving him a chance to explain himself,” he recalls.

their conditions of detention—in short, we tailor our approach to each case. It’s a much fairer method.”

In theory, perhaps. But in reality, the compensation awarded is often utterly disproportionate to the suffering endured. Firstly, because it only takes into account periods of detention. No prison, no money: such is the credo of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Wrongfully accused by judges—and by the press—of alleged sexual crimes, Dominique Baudis, for example, never received a single penny in compensation. His sweating during a 2003 television news broadcast, however, demonstrates that one can endure a judicial ordeal without being incarcerated. And so do the dozens of innocent people forced each year to undergo a rectal examination in the “mousetrap” of the Paris courthouse.

Secondly, because judges display incredible stinginess in awarding compensation. Would you believe it? On average, they grant their victims no more than 55 euros per day of imprisonment for moral damages, and barely another 20 euros to cover all material damages (reimbursement of lost wages, legal fees, etc.), amounting to a mere 2,000 euros per month in total. Not much, considering the overcrowding and violence that prevail in the prisons where detainees languish in pretrial detention. But still too much for the Ministry of Finance, which systematically uses its lawyers to appear before the Compensation Commissions in an attempt to reduce the amount owed.

And the least one can say is that these men in black carry out their task without qualms, fighting tooth and nail here to reduce the meager compensation of an innocent prisoner crippled by a herniated disc, refusing there to consider the serious psychological problems that have appeared in a teenager since his incarceration, elsewhere imposing the provision of completely useless supporting documents for the reimbursement of lost wages, as indicated in the reports of the Court of Cassation. Or outright obtaining the complete withholding of any payment from those unfortunate enough to have had the audacity to lie in their defense during their investigation. If she had agreed to answer our questions, the lawyer Dominique Couturier-Heller, who is currently carrying out this thankless task with panache at the National Compensation Commission, could undoubtedly have told us even more remarkable stories.

This stinginess is all the more shocking because it is hardly justified. The sums in question are, in fact, so small (10 to 15 million euros per year) that they could just as easily be multiplied tenfold
without jeopardizing public finances. When media attention demands it, the judicial authorities do not hesitate to open their wallets to avoid scandal. Then, there is no question of a national commission or haggling lawyers: it was in the minister’s own office that Patrick Dils, Pierre Martel, and Roland Agret negotiated their compensation. And, alone among the multitude of anonymous victims, they obtained amounts that were more or less acceptable to compensate for their immense suffering. “This two-tiered treatment is inhumane,” exclaims lawyer Jean-Marie Viala, one of the litigants in the Outreau case. But who cares?