Animal experimentation in the Finistère Department: justice calls once more for administrative transparency

On Monday 22 February 2022, the Rennes Administrative Court ordered the Prefect of Finistère to hand over the latest inspection reports on animal experimentation laboratories in their Department within the next two months to Nicolas Marty (who has since become responsible for the One Voice campaign), having made the same request to all prefectures in May 2020. This time, it is the University of Western Brittany and the experimental fish farm unit at the National Institute of Agricultural Research in Sizun in particular who are affected by the requested reports.

Already fifteen rulings requesting transparency

After the Committee for Access to Administrative Documents gave positive feedback on this communication in October 2020, and after around fifteen rulings along those lines were made by ten tribunals concerning other Departments since Autumn 2021, we should hardly be surprised by this result. However, many prefectures, guided by the Department of Agriculture, continue to resist these disclosure requests, citing in particular the “security risks” of disclosing these documents.

On this point, the ruling by the Rennes tribunal is very clear:

Equally, moral prejudice, private life confidentiality, or business confidentiality cannot be used to justify anything other than the concealment of the names of those who work in the inspected establishments, and the inspectors who control these establishments.

The Department and laboratories claim to have already been ‘transparent’

Last year, animal experimentation lobbies published a ‘transparency charter’ which continues to be approved by more and more establishments. The Department of Agriculture (we are still wondering why they are in charge of the welfare of animals in laboratories) displays more and more texts on the page that they dedicate to animal experimentation – in particular we note the publication of the handbook of laboratory inspections this Autumn and, very recently, several lines of text concerning the results of the inspections carried out in 2019 and 2020.

Smoke and mirrors

Smoke and mirrors if ever there was, because at the same time as these few very superficial additions, they spare no time or energy in trying to prevent the public from having access to first-hand information on these inspections and on the follow-up they are given: be reassured, the Department is watching — but don’t ask too many questions.

We can hope that with the accumulation of these rulings that request transparency, the culture of administrative opacity and the omerta that surrounds animal experimentation will disappear, so that the public can have a concrete idea of what happens inside these laboratories, in Finistère and elsewhere. One Voice will continue to fight for this.

Photo : Adobestock
Translated from the French by Joely Justice