Title XII: Litigation and recovery

Customs detention is carried out under the supervision of the public prosecutor, who ensures that the detainee’s legal rights are safeguarded. The Public Prosecutor may visit the premises to verify the conditions of the detention and obtain the minutes and registers provided for this purpose.

Under the conditions and subject to the reservations defined in articles 63-2 to 63-4-4 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the person placed in customs detention has the right to be examined by a doctor and to the assistance of a lawyer, as well as the right to contact a close relative or his curator or guardian, his employer, the consular authorities of his country if he is of foreign…

A person placed in customs detention is immediately informed by a customs officer, under the conditions set out in article 63-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure: 1° Of his or her detention, as well as the duration of the measure and any extensions that may be granted; 2° The presumed nature, date and place of the offence that he or she is suspected of having committed or attempted to…

Articles 63-5 and 63-6 and the first paragraph of article 63-7 of the Code of Criminal Procedure are applicable in the event of customs detention. The security measures referred to in article 63-6 of the same code are listed exhaustively by order of the minister responsible for customs. The powers conferred on the judicial police officer by article 63-7 of the same code are exercised by a customs officer.

The customs detention report is drawn up in accordance with Article 64 I of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The information provided for in the first paragraph of II of the same article 64 shall also appear in a special register kept, possibly in electronic form, in the customs premises likely to receive a detained person.

At the end of the customs detention, the public prosecutor may order that the detained person be brought before him, a judicial police officer or a customs officer authorised under article 28-1 of the code of criminal procedure, or that he be released. When detainees are taken into police custody at the end of the period of detention, the duration of the detention is counted against the period of police…

In the event of a minor being caught in the act of committing a customs offence, customs detention takes place under the conditions set out for detention and police custody in articles L. 311-1 to L. 311-5, L. 411-1 and L. 413-1 to L. 413-15 of the French juvenile criminal justice code.

I.-For the purposes of the customs investigation, customs officers may, during customs detention, in the constant and effective presence of the detainee, examine the contents of documents, whatever their medium, and all other objects in the detainee’s possession, before seizing those relating to the customs offence in flagrante delicto. The public prosecutor is informed by any means and may object. For digital media, the technical operations required to make computer…